Philip Tetlock’s book on expert political judgment was a classic. That said, he clearly thinks that the message taken from that book was too strong. Previously he suggested that experts just aren’t that good at forecasting. He still retains that theme in his new work — but now he is more interested in improving forecasting. Improving Forecasting…
Category: Decision Making
What American Football Can Tell Us About Management
One problem in studying managerial behavior is that firms aren’t very open about their failures. Still, a scholar trying to show that managers make mistakes won’t have many volunteers to serve as examples. This can, therefore, leave the perception that most organizations run smoothly. This has always seemed improbable to me. I’ve worked in several fields. I’ve encountered numerous committed, hardworking people…
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…
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…
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…
Understanding Canadian Electioneering
Tom Flanagan’s Winning Power is an impressive piece of writing. This is because it combines academic research with practical knowledge of campaigning. Flanagan worked for a variety of “Conservative” parties. This is in addition to being a professor which has given him great experience to draw upon in helping with understanding Canadian electioneering. Positioning And…
The Gauntlet Of Attacks On Behavioral Economics
Richard Thaler‘s Misbehaving may be one of my favorite academic books. The author packed the book with interesting thoughts, covers numerous important ideas, and even is amusingly candid about his colleagues. Over the coming months, I’ll occasionally cover his key points (see here and here). In this post I’ll discuss “the gauntlet”; a list of predictable…
Being Wiser Through Less Happy Talk
Sunstein and Hastie in Wiser have produced a useful book. They discuss being wiser through less happy talk. Group Decision-Making Many elements of their text will be familiar to those who read popular decision-making books. That said, the ideas are well explained and practically applicable. The added interest is that Sunstein served in the Obama…
Confusion About Individual Rationality and Market Outcomes
Amongst marketing scholars there is a lot of confusion regarding individual rationality and market outcomes. There is also plenty of blame to go around for the confusion. Marketing’s Two Groups Who Politely Ignore One Another In marketing we have bifurcated into two groups. Psychologically trained scholars often suggest that economically trained scholars all believe in…
Fitting Marketing Messages To The Circumstances
Fitting marketing messages to the circumstances is a critical skill. There isn’t a perfect message irrespective of context. People Hate Marketing As a marketing professor, it is always fun to hear how people hate marketing. Sometimes people: A) simply only really hate bad marketing. B) don’t appreciate that marketing is broader than selling/advertising/communications. Of course,…
