Perverse incentive
Etymology
From "perverse" (Latin "pervertere," to turn the wrong way) and "incentive" (Latin "incentivum," that which sets the tune). The idea is often illustrated by the "cobra effect," a story of a colonial bounty on cobras that led people to breed them for the reward.
noun phrase · /per-VURSS in-SEN-tiv/
An incentive that produces the opposite of its intended effect.
What it names
The trap where a reward meant to fix a problem quietly makes it worse.
Example
Paying programmers per bug fixed is a perverse incentive — it rewards writing buggy code.
Related idea
A moral hazard is a specific form: being shielded from a risk makes you court it. The perverse incentive is the wider category of rewards that backfire.