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This paper addresses the question: what is an unintended consequence? It presents a classification which enables us to understand different types of unintended consequences. The classification refers to several questions: whether or not the effects are social, whether they are desirable, whether they fulfil the initial intention, whether they are unanticipated, and whether they occur later than the initial action. The classification is used to deal with the phenomenon of unintended-but-anticipated consequences and is exemplified by the cases of sub-optimality, counter-finality and structuration.
Patrick Baert (Sat,) studied this question.