Economics Behaving Badly
George Loewenstein and I have an Op-Ed in the New York Times today. Check it out, and feel free to add your comments.
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On the Art of Choosing What to Read: Essay Inspired by Iyengar's New Book
So many books, so little time. I am 47 years old. Assuming, in a near best case scenario, that I live 40 more years, and that I read around one book per week the rest of my life, I will finish 2,000 more books before I die. That’s a lot of verbiage. But think about…
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My Neighborhood Made Me Do It
My Center at CBDSM regularly posts what we call the “Decision of the Month.” Our most recent DoM highlights some research I conducted with Sarah Gollust, a UM graduate student now working at Penn. Click on this link, http://www.cbdsm.org/doms/diabetes-lobby, to find out what happens when people learn about how neighborhoods influence people’s health. …
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Obama is to a Colostomy like Hope is to a …?
Would you rather experience a bad situation forever or for just six months? Any sane person would choose the temporary situation. And yet, according to a study I published this week, if you chose the temporary situation, you’d be more likely to suffer over the next six months-so focused on the hope that your situation…
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Tiger Woods and Health Care Reform
American presidents have been trying to reform our health care system since at least the Nixon era, but with only limited success. Past reform efforts have failed for many reasons. For starters, the U.S. health care system is complex, with the medical industry making up almost 1/6 of our economy. But perhaps the biggest obstacle…
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Succulent Sandwiches and Consumable Calories: Who's Counting?
Last summer, New York City made a great stride toward promoting public health, by requiring chain restaurants to prominently publish calorie counts alongside their menus. This type of regulation holds the promise of improving people’s eating habits, without restricting their freedom to order whatever they want. Theoretically, this new regulation should help consumers make better…
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Feeling Conflicted about Greed
With jobs disappearing faster than a major league fastball, the public is understandably irate at the damage that greed has wrought upon our economy. Financiers destroy their companies, and our retirement portfolios, and then complain when their bonuses are less than 7 figures. The greedy behavior in recent headlines has not been limited to Wall…
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Market rationality and hormonal logic
Studying economics in college at the dawn of the Reagan presidency, I learned about the wonders of free-markets. The invisible hand of the market, I read, guarantees that thousands upon thousands of people–each with unique desires, abilities and values–mesh together, thereby able to achieve the balance of work and leisure, and of material and spiritual…
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Risky Business: Health Risk, Relativity, and Perception
Patt Morrison of KPCC Radio in Southern California talks to me about how people make various rational and irrational decisions in their lives. CLICK HERE to listen.
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Jealous Jejunums and Descartes’ Legacy
A recent New York Times headline proclaimed that: “In Pain and Joy Of Envy, the Brain May Play a Role.” May play a role?! Where else does The New York Times think envy resides? In our hateful hearts? Our covetous colons? Our jealous jejunums? That The New York Times could doubt the centrality of the…