It has been a year since the Vice Chancellor of University of Delhi ceded to the students’ protests and opened up the University for offline learning. This move was criticised as being delayed and had come after many private institutions had already been reopened. While the students had been protesting for offline learning in part due to the miserable quality of online learning in the face of the Digital Divide that disproportionately affected many DU students belonging to various socio-economic strata, the authorities had cited uncertainty over the pandemic situation as the reason for the delayed reopening.
While the arguments presented by both parties can be deconstructed and critiqued by minds far sharper than the author’s, we assume for this article that the official reason “uncertainty about the pandemic” is the only reason they were concerned with in their decision-making. What this article hopes to present is that the public authorities acted rationally according to the incentives they faced by delaying reopening as long as the backlash from this closure was not severe.
Consider yourself in the position of the relevant public authority to decide to resume offline classes. Every day you are confronted with the decision of resuming offline classes. You (like even most experts) are unsure about the future of the pandemic. You may either allow the classes to resume or you may delay the decision to a future date. Here we can assume that the option for the reopening of classes is either done in a phased manner or simply that the impact of the reopening itself is insufficient to cause a new wave. Consider the impact of your decisions combined with the development of the pandemic.
Consider first the case where a new Covid wave is imminent. If you decide to reopen, there is a strong possibility that given the influx of so many students and the lacklustre following of distancing norms, Covid cases rise among the student body. You become the poster child of bad policy and are accused of endangering the lives of the young students who got infected because of your decisions. If you choose to delay reopening, you can proudly say that your decision to delay reopening has been vindicated and that it was a conscious decision (perhaps you even say that you made it in the public good) to not reopen colleges just yet. The game repeats once the wave dies down but you might receive a positive pay-off for your judiciousness (praise, promotion, TV time etc.).
It is clear that in the case that there is a Covid Wave, you are better off delaying the decision to reopen.
Let us now examine what happens if no new Covid wave arises. If you decide to reopen now, you face no downside from this decision. Perhaps some people even praise you for your bold decision-making and timely decisions. Or perhaps, as is more probable in the mind of the author, people are still cynical and complain about the loss of learning during the online era but are still satisfied that at least now colleges have opened. If, however, you decide to delay, you can cite procedural hurdles and say that decisions of this measure must be weighed carefully and the future of the pandemic is uncertain. Of course, you say that you understand the importance of reopening and the decision will be reconsidered at an appropriate time (sound familiar?). In this case, the game simply repeats and you receive no positive or negative pay-off other than some quiet mutterings from a few protesters.
Here it may be safe to assume that you are somewhat indifferent between reopening and delaying in case of no new covid deal.
The issue is that since you cannot control the outcome of the Covid Wave, it is rational for you to delay reopening almost indefinitely till the time either the probability of a new wave becomes apparent or you start receiving backlash for delaying.
Hindsight reveals that for the first couple of waves, this was the same attitude of the authorities as regards reopening was considered. Only when strong protests put a negative pay-off to inaction was the decision to reopen taken. What is interesting is that these protests took some accountability away from the authority. In case of a new wave after reopening, they can simply divert the responsibility to the “immature and irresponsible activists” who forced their hands into making the decision. The University can now placate the protesters by reopening (even without credible knowledge of the Covid scenario) and face little downside to being wrong.
Having seen the public sector, contrast this with the incentives that the private sector faces. Private colleges stand to gain a lot from having students on campus. These include things like hostel and mess fees, fests that are conducted and being able to charge the full fee from their students who would otherwise be reluctant to pay the entire amount for an online-only degree. This is the opportunity cost for not opening the colleges as well. Of course, they too face the risk of getting the student body infected but they have strong incentives to look after the student body and enforce things like distancing and quarantine/ testing. If one does look at the reopening schedules one is bound to find that on average Private colleges reopened faster and with better enforcement of Covid norms than public universities.
Of course, it is worth mentioning that there are other factors to consider in reopening as well such as the necessary permission given by the health authorities or the government to reopen colleges. Here again one would find similar incentives at play. The article seeks to convey that considering all other things equal (permission and feasibility of conducting offline classes), the difference in incentive structures can potentially explain the difference in reaction timing and nature of reaction by authorities in the public and private sectors.
Public officials, especially those involved in such high-visibility cases, are incentivised to act in a risk-averse manner. There is almost no upside to taking “bold” decisions and there is every incentive to use a wait-and-watch strategy. The story becomes complete when you look at the students’ perspective as well. It is conceivable to assume that the student receives a negative pay-off for each day the classes continue online (missing out on activities, unable to connect with teachers and peers, the digital divide and not to mention the incapability of the system to achieve the same learning outcomes as that of offline classes). Now, this is not to suggest that the authorities are indifferent to the suffering of the student body, they might even be very empathetic. Readers may find it curious that the private system, possibly acting only in the interest of the bottom line, reliably forces the authorities to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement for reopening. Of course, there might have been those bureaucrats who took the best advice available and ensured that the safety norms are adhered to out of a pure sense of what is in the “public good” but the purpose of the article is to analyse which systems lend themselves to be self-steering rather than relying on the person at the helm for direction.
The author believes that it is appropriate to consider public authorities as rational actors trying to do the best they can given the incentives they face, the same as that of agents in the private sector. The discourse regarding the subject could benefit from moving to an analysis of the behaviour of the policy maker which treats them as self-interested actors. One can then compare and contrast the findings from such an analysis to real-world happenings and see if such a seemingly perverse assumption about human behaviour can explain the way the world works.
Shaurya Bansal
Shaurya is a final year undergraduate student of Economics at the Hindu College. He is passionate about free markets and individual liberty. When he is not in class or at the basketball court, he enjoys mid day naps.