Economics-Principles-08-ID

A city government was facing a surge in the population of dangerous snakes. To solve this, the mayor decided to pay a $50 reward for every dead snake brought to city hall. Instead of the snake population decreasing, the population increased. The reason this program failed is most likely because ____________.

• the $50 reward was not high enough to encourage enough people to hunt, causing the program to have no effect on the snake population
• the city did not run a social media marketing campaign to inform citizens about the new cash bonuses
• people began breeding snakes to sell them to the city, creating an unintended, rational response to the new reward structure
• the city had a high opportunity cost, making the snake bounty program inefficient compared to investing in education