Economics Question and Answer 2022

Running head: ECONOMICS
Economics
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1ECONOMICS
Answer 1
Economic incentives refer to the factors that motivate the individuals to behave in a
certain manner over the preferences for their needs, wants and desires (Kurosaki, Parinduri and
Paul 2016). In other words, economic incentives are those, which provide motivation to the
individuals to pursue their preferences. These also include various types of policies, which
motivate people to enhance their productivity and earn increased income. In an economy, the
government often provides different types of economic incentives, such as, tax exemption, loan
support, and subsidy for motivating the individuals to enhance the overall productivity of the
economy (Xu, Ling and Wu 2018). In a similar manner, the government of West Bengal in India
provided incentives to the Bargadars in the form of a new law that enabled them to keep up to
75% of the total crop production. This was not possible in the earlier system and the Bargadars
paid a large amount of crop to the land owners (Ganguly 2015). The new law enabled the
Bargadars to earn more money by selling 75% of their total crop production. Thus, they got the
incentives to produce more crops. At the same time, the new law also prohibited the land owners
from eliminating the Bargadars from the land, if they could pay the landowners the quota of 25%
of the crop production as rent payment. Hence, the new laws provided motivations to the
Bargadars for increasing their production. This led to a 28% increase in the regional productivity
of crops in West Bengal and made the Operation Barga successful.
Answer 2
Consequentialism can be defined as the normative ethical theories that explain the
consequences of the conduct or behaviour of one individual as an ultimate basis for any
judgment regarding the rightness or wrongness of the behaviour or conduct. Thus,
consequentialism represents a theory, which evaluates an action and gives verdict if it is good or
bad, that is, ethically right or wrong, on the basis of the outcomes (Goldman 2015). For example,
an organization might violate the HR policies to provide medical benefits or salary to an
employee who required the money on an urgent basis. This would be a violation of ethics for the
company as per the deontology concept of ethics (Segev 2016). However, this action generates
immense amount of welfare for the employees. Hence, the outcome of the action is positive and

2ECONOMICS
that satisfies the concept of the consequentialism theory. However, to justify the implementation
of Operation Barga from the perspective of consequentialism, critical evaluation of the ethical
theory needs to be done. Operation Barga was introduced to improve the economic condition of
the Bargadars and reduce their exploitation by their land owners. The Operation Barga policy
restricted the land owners from removing the Bargadars from the land if they could pay 25% of
the crop production as rent payments. Thus, this policy was limiting the land owners from
practising their right on their own lands and this also causes violation of deontology (Portmore
2018). On the contrary, the Operation Barga generated positive outcomes as more crops as well
as increased their income. At the same time, it also prevented their eviction from the lands. Thus,
irrespective of the cost of the policy, it resulted in positive and desirable outcome. Hence, it can
be said that the policy satisfied the ethical theory of consequentialism, and it justified the
introduction of Operation Barga.
Answer 3
Deontological ethical framework refers to the normative ethical concept which says that
the morality of any action should be determined by whether the action is morally or ethically
right or wrong as per some set of rules than its final outcome (Jackson and Smith 2016). In other
words, according to the deontological ethics, the action taken should be morally right as per
some set of rules, while the consequence of the action becomes irrelevant. Hence, an individual
is morally right if the individual follows rules which are ethically right, irrespective of the
outcome (Meyers 2018). Thus, in the context of Operation Barga, the actions that were taken by
the then West Bengal government were not morally right under the deontological ethical
framework. The regulations under Operation Barga restricted the rights of the landowners on
their own lands and stopped them from taking actions to remove the Bargadars from their lands.
They were also not given the power to negotiate their share of crops from the total production.
These laws were not ethically right for the land owners. Although this operation improved the
condition of the Bargadars, that is, the outcome was better, but limiting the rights of the
landowners by using a legal decree is unethical as that violates the land ownership laws (Tarsney