[hiharryhere]

Anecdotally a similar effect happened with a friend’s childcare center.

They were sick of parents showing up late to pick their kids up so they instituted a penalty of $x for every minute a parent was late. More parents ended up being late because they felt less guilty knowing they could just pay the penalty. The social pressure to be on time was replaced by a financial one.

[schoen]

See also "A Fine is a Price": https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/468061

[hiharryhere]

Ha! Perhaps I read about that some time ago and my brain decided to file it away as a memory of my own.

Thanks for sharing.

[throwaway2037]

This is a great story!

Pay tell: What was the 2nd order consequence? The childcare center started to make more money from late parents. It sounds like a good trade. Ideally, raise the price little by little, until behaviour hits an equilibrium. Then you have extracted maximum value for both sides! If parents don't like it, they can go to a different daycare.

[layer8]

It just means they didn’t set the price high enough.