One of the most interesting things about behavioural economics is that it is quite practical. The findings can apply in the public sphere. Such application can often be very direct. Furthermore, many of the ideas generated in behavioural economics are simple tweaks. Tweaks can be very cheap to implement. This, therefore, can make the ideas popular…
Category: Decision Making
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…
Academics And Political Conclusions
We all have political opinions. (Having no opinion is a stance in itself). What can we say about academics and political conclusions? Academics Have A Role In Political Discourse Academics have an important role to play in political discourse. Yet, we have to try to rid ourselves of bias and use appropriate evidence. It is therefore disappointing…
True But Useless
The Heath brothers, Chip and Dan, have an entertaining style and together they have generated a number of readable, informative popular psychology/business books. I enjoy the books and generally agree with a lot of what they say. A nice addition to the language is True But Useless. The Problem Of Certainty The brothers do run into the problem facing a lot…
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,…
Understanding What A Fallacy Is
Formal logic makes for elegant research. It can help us in understanding what a fallacy is. Formal And Informal Logic With formal logic there is a right answer and so researchers can be confident that some choices are simply wrong. Unfortunately, formal logic has relatively limited application in the real world. Gerd Gigerenzer has argued that some flaws in…
Bad Arguments
A lot of arguments simply don’t make sense. Spotting bad arguments is a vital, and I’d guess, rare skill for academics and business people. Ali Almossawi has a fun little book on bad arguments. They are all illustrated to make them more memorable. I don’t completely endorse all the descriptions. Still, he raises important things to bear in mind…
Marshmallows And Your Future
Walter Mischel’s The Marshmallow Test is a really enjoyable book. His is a long career and he has numerous studies to draw upon. The whole area has suffered a few attacks (written in 2021 but there are still ideas one should know. (Of course, never get too obsessive about details of out work as our understanding, hopefully,…
Rationality And The Republican Autopsy
Political marketing is about giving voters what they want so one must have some notion of how voters think. With a colleague, June Cotte, I wanted to uncover how political marketers think voters think. The specific question we looked at was: “do political marketers think voters are rational?” What can we say about rationality and the Republican autopsy? Lack Of Clarity…
Experimenters And Economists
Advocates for more behavioural approaches to understanding economics often use experiments. These typically show people acting in strange ways. Or at least that violate the principles of traditional economics. (Maybe the people are normal and the principles weird). A key thing is that experimenters and economists can be the same people. There is much potential uniting these…
