In Moscow today, all weather forecasters simultaneously quit their jobs...

If we can't predict the weather, we can at least blame the forecasters for our problems, right?

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution shares this story.

Moscow Mayor Juri Luschkov said: "Weather forecasters in our city and the surrounding area will be held responsible for financial losses that the city incurs through their incorrect prognoses."....

He did not elaborate on how much the fines would be or if the cash would be taken from the weathermen, or the companies they worked for.

The fines come after the head of the Romanian National Meteorology Agency, Ion Poiana, was fired after he predicted warm weather fronts on days when temperatures plunged to a record minus 36 degrees centigrade.

So if a farmer plans for no frost when the forecaster said there probably wouldn't be any, and the frost kills the plants, the forecaster is fined. If the fines go to the farmer, we have a moral hazard problem - the farmer doesn't take as many precautions to protect from frost because the forecaster will pay if the crops fail. Even if the fines go to the government, a potential forecaster has less incentive to work at forecasting because of the risk that he or she will be fined if the instruments are off or the models are inaccurate.