Category: Behavioral economics and nudges
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Nudging: Calm Down It Really Is Not The End Of Freedom
Mark D. White has written an ominously titled book “The Manipulation of Choice: Ethics and Libertarian Paternalism”. He really doesn’t like the sort of Nudging proposed by Thaler and Sunstein in their book, Nudge. I think that he needs to chill out. He gets excited about minor philosophical issues while ignoring big social issues. Nudges…
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Nudges Are Not Magical (Just in Case Someone Thought They Were)
The idea of nudging, designing choices to help people make better choices, has become popular for good reason. Yet, nudges aren’t magical, which some people seem disappointed about when they find this out. Nudges Or What? A nudge is a well-designed attempt to guide the decision-maker towards a beneficial outcome. The alternative seems to be random,…
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The Last Mile: Implementing Your Wonderful Strategy
Dilip Soman’s The Last Mile is an excellent book. It reiterates fascinating points that are commonly found in behavioral (economics) books. What sets the book apart? The effective structure put to the insights. There are plenty of classifications and tables. These help us better understand the vast number of behavioral insights that the book contains. Test Your Ideas Other interesting points…
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Who Doesn’t Want Nudges And Competent Government?
The idea of nudging, structuring decisions to encourage people to make good choices, is surprisingly controversial. An example of a nudge might be to encourage those who are qualified to take up a social benefit or to get a tax break to do so. The nudge might be as simple as creating an easy to use application…
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What Use Is An Evolutionary Definition of Rationality?
Eyal Winter’s book, Feeling Smart, is interesting but frustrating. There is much good content. Indeed, some of the stories are great. My biggest problem was the casual use of concepts. This was exemplified by the central idea of his book. He said that feelings/emotions can help you make smart decisions. I totally agree but the big problem was…
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How Managers Decide
My second delve into Richard Thaler’s Misbehaving concerns managerial decision making. How managers decide is a massively important topic. Equilibrium Conditions Don’t Describe Any Point In Time Economic models often study equilibrium conditions. These apply where no manager will want to change their decision. Given they model this some academics seem to think that this describes…
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A Bias Towards A Bias To Action?
Phil Rosenzweig likes criticizing other people. He is usually correct. Still, at his worst, he is highly selective in his criticisms. Rosenzweig seems starstruck by CEOs and their dodgy pronouncements. He happily agrees with dubious advice from top managers. He shows a bias towards a bias to action. Yet, he gets out his microscope when…
