Educational Institutions and Perverse Effects: Short-Cycle Higher Education

Abstract

The following analysis brings to light a structure of interdependence that is both akin to and distinct from the famous prisoner’s-dilemma structure. It is similar to the prisoner’s dilemma because if the players play with some awareness as to what is happening they will achieve a worse result (or at best an equivalent result) to the one they would have got by playing in a non-rational way. The juxtaposition of rational strategies will, in other words, engender a worse result than Pareto’s equilibrium. It is therefore a question here of a typical perverse effect, but some of the players achieve a satisfactory result and it therefore differs structurally from the prisoner’s dilemma. Since each player can hope before the game starts to achieve this satisfactory result himself, it is in no one’s interest (at least, prior to the game) to oppose it. In spite of the perverse effects that it engenders, it would be harder to achieve a consensus as to its suppression than in a game with a prisoner’s-dilemma structure.