Interesting Government Nudge
Do you think this will work to get people to stop texting and driving?

Do you think this will work to get people to stop texting and driving?

In 1991, I remember where I was walking when I learned that Magic Johnson was HIV positive. I shuffled along in a daze, distraught at the thought of such a young and magnificent man facing imminent death. Back then, you see, an HIV diagnosis was practically a death sentence. Of course, Magic Johnson is still alive….
A jab to the right, then Carmelo steps back behind the three-point line and launches a shot. It clanks off the back of the rim. How likely is he to be the next person on his team to attempt a shot? And what are the odds that his follow-up shot will come from behind the…
As the University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler tells the story, a group of fellow-graduate students in economics were at his house one night in the late nineteen-seventies, socializing before the dinner hour. Thaler saw how much they were snacking, and decided to remove the nut bowls from the living room. His colleagues—almost all of whom…
Here is a nice picture, from the Wonkblog, summarizing the best evidence to date on whether cigarette taxes reduce smoking. The bottom line here is that cigarette taxes slightly reduce smoking among smokers. That slight reduction reflects, in part, those people who quit smoking because it has simply become too expensive. It also includes people…
The Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (yes, there is such a thing!) had an outstanding issue dedicated to eating behavior recently. Here is a picture from that issue worth sharing:
I remember one time having a conversation with Daniel Kahneman, one of the founders of behavioral economics, about the topic of happiness and emotional adaptation, in the context of chronic disability. We were discussing emotional impact of experiencing a limb amputation. Kahneman pointed out that it is the loss of the limb that is really…