The Big Carrot

My favorite definition of economics is that it is the study of incentives. I'm fascinated by incentives that go beyond money, but reading this Economist article about the X Prize had me thinking about the subject. A prize of 10 million for a car that runs 100 miles a gallon and road friendly is quite the task. Just to show the magnitude of one question, maybe the biggest is asked and pondered here. One great thing that's happening with social networking sites is a site like BigCarrot can come about and anyone can make up the prize money for certain questions. Think about it. What is your big question? How much money would you give if someone could answer it?