Google Reader Feed: My Shared Items
Jerome Groopman’s How Doctors Think attempts to shed light on the cognitive processes of doctors as they go about the business of diagnosing and treating patients. Groopman’s thesis is that, contra to what is taught in medical schools, the very best doctors do not follow the algorithmic, Bayesian diagnostic process. Algorithmic analyses is often adequate [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: behavioral economics, book review, diagnostics, psychology | 1 Comment »
This weekend’s FT had a great article summarizing the findings of happiness research: Many of us struggle to find real happiness. Why is that? Studies in psychology suggest that part of the reason is that most of us are very bad at predicting how we’ll react when faced with many of life’s experiences. Consequently, we [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: behavioral economics, happiness, psychology, wellbeing | Leave a Comment »
Via Futility Closet: One day in 1939, Berkeley doctoral candidate George Dantzig arrived late for a statistics class taught by Jerzy Neyman. He copied down the two problems on the blackboard and turned them in a few days later, apologizing for the delay — he’d found them unusually difficult. Distracted, Neyman told him to leave [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: behavioral economics, framing, performance | Leave a Comment »
For those interested in the smart and witty discussion of economics (behavioral and otherwise) do yourself a favor and check out Jodi Begg’s Economists Do It With Models (the title says it all). Beggs is a Ph.D. Candidate at Harvard and focuses on behavioral economics (incentives, generally). She has a great sense of humor and [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: behavioral economics, Blogs, Economics | Leave a Comment »
It’s been a little hectic lately. I’ve haven’t posted in about a week, but am looking to in the next few days. In the meantime, check out this interesting talk from TED by Nobel laureate and behavioral economics pioneer Daniel Kahneman on experience, happiness, and why a 2-week vacation is only marginally better than a [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: behavioral economics | Leave a Comment »
Jeff Ely over at the excellent Cheap Talk writes about his attempt to fool himself into being punctual: I once tried setting my watch ahead a few minutes to help me make it to appointments on time. At first it worked, but not because I was fooled. I would glance at the watch, get worried [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: behavioral economics, nudge strategies, Strategy | Leave a Comment »
Thaler and Sunstein’s Nudge blog points to an interesting project, sponsored by Volkswagen, called The Fun Theory. The idea beyond The Fun Theory is that beneficial behaviors (such as recycling and exercise) can be encouraged simply by making those behaviors, well, more fun. The video below is one example where the goal was to encourage [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: behavioral economics, crowdsourcing, nudge strategies | 2 Comments »
Last week, the WSJ ran an article on the increasing use of insights from behavioral economics by businesses and organizations. Organizations are using these insights to ‘nudge‘ customers and clients toward specific behaviors–e.g. using less energy, opting in to the home delivery of prescription drugs, etc. The essence of behavioral economics is that humans fail [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: behavioral economics, incentives, interests, nudging, relational data | 2 Comments »
Fiction
Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
Non-fiction
The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball
Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value
The Numbers Game
Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate
Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception
The Rational Optimist
The Quiet American
How Doctors Think
The Wisdom of Whores
Switch
Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
