Human Ingenuity in Evading Rules

One of the constants in a bureaucrat's life is the fact the people with whom she deals will often spend a good deal of effort in evading the rules.  Whether it's taxpayers stretching the truth in preparing tax returns or seeking legal or semi-legal tax shelters, farmers reorganizing their farming enterprises to evade limitations on farm program payments, or disaster victims claiming losses which exist only in their mind, evading rules is ever-present.

Chris Blattman is a professor who runs experiments in Africa.  The gold standard of social science experiments is "randomization", dividing subjects into two matched groups and trying something on one group you don't use on the other.  He ran into the rule evasion phenomena in a recent experiment.  He ends the discussion:

"The researchee defeats the researcher. I wonder if they realized that they could completely insure one another and get the outcome they want. Would I be that surprised if one managed to track down my blog and saw the idea as it is? I’m now not so sure…