Corruption Conundrum and Other Paradoxes and Dilemmas

V Raghunathan

Description

How can you be a well-known secret agent ? Why is the only voting method that isn t flawed a dictatorship ? How is it that Corruption is universally disapproved of, and yet universally practised ? The world of dilemmas and paradoxes touch our lives on a regular basis. In The Corruption Conundrum and Other Paradoxes and Dilemmas, V. Raghunathan, the author of the best-seller Games Indians Play, shares the charms of some of the more interesting examples allowing us to delight in the excitement, mystery, confusion, exasperation and that occasional flash of clarity and enlightenment often experienced when the world of paradoxes and dilemmas hits our own. The book takes the reader through some of the fascinating illustrations, classical and well known as well as the less common examples, in the field of management, finance and work life. Can two positives make a negative? Sample a charming little paradox discussed in the book the blackmail paradox. It is perfectly legal if you gossip, reveal or threaten to reveal somebody s secret (unless of course you are bound by a non-disclosure agreement). It is also perfectly legal to ask that somebody for some money. But if you undertake a combination of the two acts, each perfectly legal by itself, with respect to somebody, well you are a criminal, a blackmailer! Following the same easy, readable style of his previous best-seller, Games Indians Play, this new book should make absorbing reading and will certainly make you more curious about the world that surrounds us.

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 04 mai 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184752076
• Langue: English

Extrait

Can two positives make a negative? How is it that corruption is universally disapproved of and yet universally practised? Can voting always yield a consistent majority opinion?
 
The world of dilemmas and paradoxes touches our lives on a regular basis.
 
In The Corruption Conundrum and Other Paradoxes and Dilemmas , V. Raghunathan shares the charms of some of the more interesting examples allowing us to delight in the excitement, mystery, confusion, exasperation, and that occasional flash of clarity and enlightenment, often experienced when the world of paradoxes and dilemmas hits our own.
 
The book takes the reader through some of the fascinating illustrations, classical and well known as well as the less common, in the field of management, law, finance and work life. For example, can every uncertain cash flow have a certainty equivalent? Why are the results of Copenhagen-like summits typically predictable?
 
Following the same easy readable style of his previous best-seller, Games Indians Play , this new book should make absorbing reading and will certainly make you more curious about the world that surrounds us.
V. Raghunathan taught Finance at IIM, Ahmedabad, for nearly two decades. In 2001 he moved to the corporate world as president, ING Vysya Bank. He is currently CEO, GMR Varalakshmi Foundation, part of the GMR group, an infrastructure major. Since 1990 he has also been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Bocconi, Milan, lecturing on behavioural finance.
 
Raghunathan has published over 400 academic papers and popular articles, writing regular columns in the Economic Times and in the Mint . He has written six books including the best-seller Games Indians Play (Penguin, 2006). He is also a busy public speaker.
 
He boasts of what is probably the largest private collection of ancient locks in the country. Raghunathan has also been a cartoonist with a national daily, played chess at the all-India level, and sketched competitively in the past. His website is www.vraghunathan.com.
 
Cover design by Ka Designs
How can you be a well-known secret agent? Why is the only voting method that isn't flawed a dictatorship? Why is India unlikely to get a Security Council seat in a hurry?
 
The world of dilemmas and paradoxes touches our lives on a regular basis.
 
In The Corruption Conundrum and Other Paradoxes and Dilemmas V. Raghunathan shares the charms of some of the more interesting examples allowing us to delight in the excitement, mystery, confusion, exasperation, and that occasional flash of clarity and enlightenment, often experienced when the world of paradoxes and dilemmas hits our own.
 
 
PRAISE FOR GAMES INDIANS PLAY
 
‘Raghunathan writes really well…his writing is not dry, but is laced with humour, staire and sarcasm, extremely reader-friendly’—Bibek Debroy, Indian Express
 
‘What makes Raghunathan’s style unusual is that his argument isn’t a moral diatribe: He employs game theory…and related concepts such as Prisoner’s Dilemma, to present his case’— Knowledge@Wharton
 
‘A saddening but delightful book’— DNA
 
 
 
 
THE CORRUPTION CONUNDRUM      AND OTHER PARADOXES AND DILEMMAS
The Corruption Conundrum      and Other Paradoxes and Dilemmas
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
V. RAGHUNATHAN
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PORTFOLIO
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Group (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
 

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
 
First published in Portfolio by Penguin Books India 2010
 
Copyright © V. Raghunathan 2010
 
 
All rights reserved
 
The views and opinions expressed in this e-book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.
 
ISBN: 978-0-67008-356-5
 
This digital edition published in 2011.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-207-6
 
 
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this e-book.
 
 
 
 
 
 
To Meena … twenty-five years and still a paradox
Contents
Copyright
WHAT MAKES PARADOXES AND DILEMMAS INTERESTING?
IS IT THE SAME? OR IS IT DIFFERENT? THESEUS DILEMMA IN ACTION
SHOULD BLACKMAIL BE LEGAL? AND OTHER PARADOXES OF THE LAW
A $100 BILL ON WALL STREET, RATIONALITY AND CONTRADICTIONS
PRICE WARS, THE CENTIPEDE AND OTHER GAMES
THE DILEMMA OF THE LURING LOTTERY AND DHARMA
SHOULD I? SHOULDN’T I? SOME MORAL DILEMMAS
TAKEOVER BIDS AND THE LOSING WINNERS
NEARLY PARADOXICAL, BUT NOT QUITE
PARADOX OF DEMOCRACY AND CHOICE
PARADOX OF CORRUPTION
‘HOW MUCH IS SACHIN TENDULKAR WORTH?’ AND THE PARADOX OF VALUE
PARADOX OF CERTAINTY EQUIVALENT
PARADOX OF THE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NOTES
CHAPTER 1
 
What Makes Paradoxes and
Dilemmas Interesting?
 

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask [to be grounded]; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.
—Joseph Heller, Catch-22
 
 
One lazy evening I was surfing channels on the television, when I briefly stumbled upon a Ripley’s Believe It or Not clip. The man being interviewed had an uncanny ability to dream disasters before they happened and was thus helping Scotland Yard prevent some disasters. Alongside, a police detective from the Yard explained how the man’s supernatural gift was helping the police.
That sounded paradoxical. If the man could really dream the disasters before they happened, how could that help the police? Suppose he really had the power to foretell the future through his dreams and he dreamed of an act of arson. Then the arson had to happen. And if the arson did happen as dreamed, the advance knowledge of the act obviously had not helped the police prevent the arson. And if the police did prevent the arson based on the dream of the disaster before it happened , then the dream’s prediction of the arson was wrong, because the disaster never happened. Err … let me leave you to sort it out.
 
 
PROBABILITY IS THE ONLY CERTAINTY
Can the future ever be predicted? can any aspect of the world be absolutely deterministic? Imagine, if only one could predict what the market price of a single stock would be the next second, one would have a perpetual money-making machine on hand. In a ‘foretellable’ or deterministic world, I would know when I am a toddler that in the future I am going to be a PhD in finance with a reasonably acceptable career. Given my childhood dislike for schools in general, I would avoid them, preferring my perch on the mango tree, knowing I was going to have a good life anyway, and parental pressure for me to study well lest I fail in life would have sounded utterly ridiculous. But this would have seriously impaired my schooling and it is difficult to see how I would have made it to higher academia, and so forth. At the same time, I would have been foolish to slog in school, then college and for thirty years at work, when it was known all along that I was going to be reasonably comfortable in life in any case. Similarly I would be foolish to work hard if I knew early in life that I was going to be a loser, for what is the point of working hard if I am going to wind up a bum anyway?
In a deterministic world, all financial rewards would be fixed return rewards, since all investments would be risk-free and hence would fetch risk-free returns. Where then would entrepreneurship be, for isn’t entrepreneurial reward all about reward for risk? But in a deterministic world, where there is no risk, there is no question of any reward for entrepreneurial risk either. So where is the incentive for any economic activity or any saving or any investment? Why would anybody ever sell or buy an insurance knowing exactly when one is going to die? If I know with certainty this morning that by evening I am going to be in Paris, why would I waste my money trying to buy a ticket to get to Paris, since somehow I am going to be there anyway? And if I do not buy a ticket, how will I be in Paris? Thus it is inconceivable to have a deterministic world, because such a world will be inherently par