# Contested concept: goodhart's law

_**What you are reading**: one contested-concept page in Deliberus's deliberation graph. Deliberus maps human reasoning — including claims that are contested, mistaken, or extreme — so that disagreement can be examined precisely. A claim's presence here is not an endorsement: the graph records that someone argued it, how it connects to other reasoning, and how far scrutiny has gotten. The metadata on this page describes the state of that scrutiny, not the truth of the claim._

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- **Contestedness**: semantic
- **Diagnosis**: The label covers a narrow claim about monetary and statistical relationships and a broad claim about incentives and gaming. This hides disagreement about whether Goodhart, Campbell and Ravetz said the same thing, and about which cases (IUCN, NCLB, COVID testing) are genuine instances.
- **Canonical**: `/concept/goodhart's law` (data: `/concept/goodhart's law.json`)

## Senses in use
- **A measure that becomes a target ceases to be a good measure (a general adage about measures and targets).** — used in 6 claim(s)
- **A law of unintended consequences, the inevitable corollary of accountability, or the rational-expectations response to incentives.** — used in 4 claim(s)
- **An indicator stops functioning as an indicator because people game it (a behavioral gaming mechanism).** — used in 4 claim(s)
- **Statistical regularities collapse when used for control or policy purposes (a claim about the stability of relationships under intervention).** — used in 4 claim(s)

## Claims using this term
- [A risk model breaks down when used for regulatory purposes.](/claim/claim_2156768d7224.md) _(sense: Statistical regularities collapse when used for control or policy purposes (a claim about the stability of relationships under intervention).)_
- [[Goodhart's Law], this law of unintended consequences, is so inescapable.](/claim/claim_3ce0530e4106.md) _(sense: A law of unintended consequences, the inevitable corollary of accountability, or the rational-expectations response to incentives.)_
- [All metrics of scientific evaluation are bound to be abused.](/claim/claim_3d24f89a0ef0.md) _(sense: An indicator stops functioning as an indicator because people game it (a behavioral gaming mechanism).)_
- [The No Child Left Behind Act leading teachers to force students through grades before they were ready is an example of Goodhart's law [the …](/claim/claim_4c79b9483c62.md) _(sense: A measure that becomes a target ceases to be a good measure (a general adage about measures and targets).)_
- [If an employee is rewarded based on the number of cars sold each month, the employee will try to sell more cars, even at a loss.](/claim/claim_526a7ea091af.md) _(sense: A law of unintended consequences, the inevitable corollary of accountability, or the rational-expectations response to incentives.)_
- ['Goodhart's Law' - That every measure which becomes a target becomes a bad measure - is inexorably, if ruefully, becoming recognized as one…](/claim/claim_57431175b461.md) _(sense: A measure that becomes a target ceases to be a good measure (a general adage about measures and targets).)_
- [People start to game [a feature of the economy picked as an indicator of the economy].](/claim/claim_5e171f34b1ce.md) _(sense: An indicator stops functioning as an indicator because people game it (a behavioral gaming mechanism).)_
- [[The statement that a risk model breaks down when used for regulatory purposes] is a corollary [of the statement that any statistical relat…](/claim/claim_6da7c8f12de6.md) _(sense: Statistical regularities collapse when used for control or policy purposes (a claim about the stability of relationships under intervention).)_
- [Goodhart's law [used to criticize the British Thatcher government for trying to conduct monetary policy based on targets for broad and narr…](/claim/claim_6de92e78914a.md) _(sense: A measure that becomes a target ceases to be a good measure (a general adage about measures and targets).)_
- [Goodhart's law states that when a feature of the economy is picked as an indicator of the economy, then it inexorably ceases to function as…](/claim/claim_72bc1c19c963.md) _(sense: An indicator stops functioning as an indicator because people game it (a behavioral gaming mechanism).)_
- [Any statistical relationship will break down when used for policy purposes.](/claim/claim_9290b6dae194.md) _(sense: Statistical regularities collapse when used for control or policy purposes (a claim about the stability of relationships under intervention).)_
- [[Goodhart's Law] is the inevitable corollary of that invention of modernity: accountability.](/claim/claim_a211a0d647bb.md) _(sense: A law of unintended consequences, the inevitable corollary of accountability, or the rational-expectations response to incentives.)_
- [As applied in economics, Goodhart's law is also implicit in the idea of rational expectations.](/claim/claim_a2f46b90d592.md) _(sense: A law of unintended consequences, the inevitable corollary of accountability, or the rational-expectations response to incentives.)_
- [Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.](/claim/claim_b01e81e7d68f.md) _(sense: Statistical regularities collapse when used for control or policy purposes (a claim about the stability of relationships under intervention).)_
- [Later writers generalized Goodhart's point about monetary policy into a more general adage about measures and targets in accounting and eva…](/claim/claim_c0d47ef1c55f.md) _(sense: A measure that becomes a target ceases to be a good measure (a general adage about measures and targets).)_
- [When a feature of the economy is picked as an indicator of the economy, then it inexorably ceases to function as that indicator.](/claim/claim_cbaf8e6af8c4.md) _(sense: An indicator stops functioning as an indicator because people game it (a behavioral gaming mechanism).)_
- [Goodhart's law reflects a much more general phenomenon [than criticism of monetary policy targets].](/claim/claim_e8a5b9570557.md) _(sense: A measure that becomes a target ceases to be a good measure (a general adage about measures and targets).)_
- [When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.](/claim/claim_f50881a8d434.md) _(sense: A measure that becomes a target ceases to be a good measure (a general adage about measures and targets).)_