Another excellent talk from TED.com about behavioural economics (to add to those already covered on this blog). Dan Pink, a former speech writer for Al Gore, explains how a lot of business practice still relies on extrinsic motivation which is known scientifically to be counter-productive (explained previously on this blog). He echoes Phil Rozenweig’s charge [...]
Filed under: Bias, Economics, persuasion | 2 Comments »
Last week I gave a talk about happiness research. Here are some notes for posterity. I haven’t deliberately sought out happiness research, but bias research (my area of interest) overlaps with it a great deal.
First, a disclaimer. When we talk about one group being happier than another, we’re talking about the average of a large [...]
Filed under: Bias, Economics, Health, Psychology | 4 Comments »
Behavioural economists have been quick on the uptake in using video lectures to convey their message. Here is a short round-up focusing on quality rather than comprehensiveness.
Filed under: Economics, Psychology | Tagged: behaviorism, behaviourism, Bias, decision making, rationality, teaching, video | 2 Comments »
Review of Peter A. Ubel (2009) Free Market Madness: Why human nature is at odds with economics – and why it matters. Harvard Business Press, ISBN:9781422126097
Despite the title, this book sings the praises of the free market. However, it soundly debunks a libertarian free-market fundamentalism that draws its legitimacy from the rational-choice assumptions of economics.
The [...]
Filed under: Economics, Health, Psychology | Tagged: behavioral economics, behaviorism, behaviourism, book review, cognitive bias, Daniel Kahneman, decision making, politics, public policy | Leave a Comment »
Review of Dan Ariely (2008) Predictably Irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions Harper Collins. ISBN: 978-0-00-725-652-5
This is a gem of a book: short, engagingly-written and connected both to the science and the policy implications. Ariely is a seasoned bias researcher (he sees himself as a behavioural economist rather than a psychologist) and this [...]
Filed under: Bias, Economics, Psychology | Tagged: Bias, book, choice, Economics, irrationality, Psychology, public policy, review | 2 Comments »
The term “Holocaust denial” is, I hope, widely understood. It refers to pretend scholarship that challenges the idea that the Holocaust happened. This has no connection at all with Holocaust scholarship. Whereas real historical scholarship examines multiple, converging lines of evidence to assemble a picture of what happened at a particular time, denial takes a [...]
Filed under: Bias, Critical Thinking, Economics | Tagged: creationism, denial, vaccines | Leave a Comment »
Many comparative studies show that capital punishment provides no deterrent whatsoever against murder. However, there are widely cited econometric studies that seem to show that for each person executed, several murders are prevented. Why the discrepancy? Because the econometrics is junk science.
This post originally appeared on the Kewl Doodz’n’Chyx community blog.
Filed under: Critical Thinking, Economics | Tagged: Bias, crime, science | Leave a Comment »
