The Game of Consequences

Unintended consequences are one of my favorite topics. I only wish politicians around the world felt the same. Most of them barely consider the immediate effects of their policies, let alone the second-order ones.

They settle on a good‑sounding meme their audience likes and run with it. Years or decades later the consequences catch up but nobody takes the responsibility, even if it’s the same people in power.

Governance is not exactly solved, but many recurring policy questions are no longer mysterious. We have decades of evidence from different countries, cities, and political systems. Yet we keep making the same mistakes.

Our world isn’t static. Policies change incentives. People adapt.

Rent control is probably the dumbest one. Economists overwhelmingly agree that it reduces the supply and quality of rental housing over time, but voters continue to support it.

San Francisco expanded rent control in 1994 to protect tenants from rising rents and displacement. Affected landlords converted rental properties to owner-occupied housing, redeveloped them, or withdrew them from the rental market. The policy protected many incumbent tenants, but landlords reduced rental supply by an estimated 15%. The researchers estimated that the resulting contraction increased citywide rents by 5.1%, shifting costs toward future tenants and people moving into the city.

Mexico City prohibited most vehicles from driving one weekday per week, based on the final digit of the license plate, to reduce traffic and air pollution. What did people do? Some bought second cars, usually old and more polluting ones. The environment didn’t get better.

European and UK rules favor biodiesel and sustainable aviation fuel made from used cooking oil. In some countries, it’s more profitable to simply sell the oil directly to be processed into biodiesel without ever cooking with it. Malaysia exported roughly three times as much used cooking oil as it could plausibly collect domestically.

French companies crossing 50 employees became subject to additional labor, employee-representation, profit-sharing, and administrative obligations. So they have a weird distribution with a big jump right before the 50-person mark. Owners stop hiring, split up companies or simply underreport their employee base.

Chile required companies with 20 or more female employees to provide childcare. This increased the costs for companies hiring women. Stats show that women hired when the mandate applied received starting wages estimated to be 9–20% lower than comparable women hired by the same firm when the mandate did not apply.

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Any solution becomes someone else’s problem. Sometimes, the very people you wanted to help. Subsidize something and someone will find a way to produce more of it. Protect one group and the cost may be shifted to another.

Unintended consequences are everywhere. I wanted to help people understand them, so I built Consequences, the game.

You become the mayor of New Amsterdam and have to make tough decisions. Your decisions affect the economy, employment, affordability, quality of life, city finances, and public trust. Some results appear immediately. Others return several years later. Meanwhile, you must keep the city solvent, hold together enough political support to avoid a recall, and persuade voters to give you another term.

Play Consequences, and let me know whether New Amsterdam reelects you and which decision you regret most.