Continuing on the theme of business models, hacking the target audience in multiple dimensions, and also incentivisation by government for social objectives. More governments can learn from this but with the clear objective of advancing social good and making sure that the help they render to the populace lands in the right hands. And that people are behaving in the socially desirable direction.
This is different from the typical incentivisation that is driven by cost-benefit calculations of corporates, and enabling companies to cross certain cost hurdles to invest in certain activities in an economy. The sort of incentivisation that we are operating on here deals with longer term, more strategic directions that the government is driving at – not just trying to hit GDP growth targets or stimulating the aggregate demand of the economy.
And these strategies also gets at cultural shifts and change. Done properly, they create a new, better culture that treasures the future. That does not claim the present or the short term at the expense of the future. Parts of this incentivisation could be about a mixture of regulation that creates demand while subsidisation that buffers the costs of compliance. For example, applying a hefty carbon tax while subsidising decarbonisation technologies and programmes.
It’s not about sticks or carrots but sticks and carrots.