Perverse incentive

[1] The results of a perverse incentive scheme are also sometimes called cobra effects, where people are incentivized to make a problem worse.

This name was coined by economist Horst Siebert based on an anecdote taken from the British Raj.

Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward.

[4][5] In his autobiography, Mark Twain says that his wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens, had a similar experience:[44] Once in Hartford the flies were so numerous for a time, and so troublesome, that Mrs. Clemens conceived the idea of paying George a bounty on all the flies he might kill.

... Any Government could have told her that the best way to increase wolves in America, rabbits in Australia, and snakes in India, is to pay a bounty on their scalps.