Category Archives: Behavioral Economics
Using Economics for Real Life
Forbes recently had an excellent article on Alvin Roth entitled “Un-Freakonomics“. Alvin Roth has created almost a cult following by doing the opposite of what Dubner and Levitt achieved with Freakonomics. Rather than use ‘the dismal science’ to find out whether Sumo wrestlers are cheating or not, he uses economics to do things like save [...]
The Upside of Irrationality
For those of you who enjoyed Freakonomics, Super Freakonomics, The Economic Naturalist, Nudge, Bringing Sexy Back to Economics, and various other books, and therefore thought you’d seen more or less all there was to see about quirky Economics, I am sorry to disappoint you, but Dan Ariely’s “The Upside of Irrationality” turns out to have [...]
The Dry-Cleaning Paradox
When driving, chances are that you, the reader, will fill up at a gas station where petrol is cheap. If you need gas at another point along the road, you may fill up at another station. If a third gas station has cheaper gas, you’ll probably then switch to that one. On the other hand, [...]
Terrorists are Vulgar
The Atlantic recently asked that we refer to terrorists as nitwits. They illustrate what a hapless group of incompetent, ignorant, three-stooges like people these terrorists are, as well as how there is nothing religious about most of them and how they have even been caught getting intimate with cows and donkeys. We are happy to [...]
