Suppose that the development of a technology has two effects: giving a small benefit B to its inventors and the country that sponsors them, while imposing an aggregately larger harm H—which could be a risk externality—on everybody. Even somebody who is largely altruistic might then choose to develop the overall harmful technology. They might reason that the harm H will result no matter what they do, since if they refrain somebody else will develop the technology anyway; and given that total welfare cannot be affected, they might as well grab the benefit B for themselves and their nation.
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