Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Behavior, Extended Order, Institutions on Mar 5th, 2013
Did you ever spend gargantuan amounts of time obsessing about a particular decision or purchase? Which graduate school should you attend? What kind of car should you buy? Or spending weeks and weeks and weeks waiting for the perfect deal, or for a good-used version of some product that you want to come up for […]
Posted in Behavior, Paternalism on Feb 21st, 2013
We’re doomed? The joke that is the Behavioral Movement? A reason to purchase a firearm? (click the image for a link, and check out the next project we are going to be treated to: a defense of your ability to stop me from having more children) Nonetheless, I enjoy living in a world where all […]
Posted in Behavior, Classical Liberalism, Voluntary Society, Welfare State on Feb 20th, 2013
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” Thus says the great physicist Richard Feynman. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around both the rhetoric and sentiments of the “Progressives” that live around us. And I do think I am onto something. I’ve talked […]
Posted in Behavior, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jan 22nd, 2013
The pop wisdom on what economists (real economists) mean by “rational actors” or “rational decision makers” is ostentatiously misleading. That view basically suggests that rationality = “correct choice” or perhaps something like “omniscient beings.” This is of course silly not least of all that Hayek won a Nobel Prize in part for demonstrating how important […]
Posted in Behavior on Jan 14th, 2013
It appears that it would make me as happy as a 50% income increase: Comparing the Happiness Effects of Real and On-line Friends by John F. Helliwell, Haifang Huang – #18690 (LS PE) Abstract: A recent large Canadian survey permits us to compare real-time and on-line social networks as sources of subjective well-being. The sample of 5,000 […]
Posted in Behavior, Courses & Student Resources on Dec 30th, 2012
HT to Randy Parker of ECU.
Posted in Behavior, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., Price System, Regulation, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Dec 7th, 2012
There are generally three types of discrimination (actually four) that may result in some economic actors being left shorthanded (we can define that in future post, but for now just conjure up the mental image of a worker being paid less than he/she “should”). These are: Employer discrimination: the owners of a firm treat individuals […]
You know, there are actually folks out here in the world that want to understand what the heck we actually know and don’t know. And it’s not particularly helpful when the alarmosphere and denial-osphere can’t have a reasonable discussion. Not only have we talked here about the lack of consensus on what, exactly, is the […]
Posted in Behavior, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Nov 23rd, 2012
I thought this article was excellent, and showed just how important the power of a understanding and using statistics could be. I’d love to have these folks working on all sorts of problems. In case that idea is of interest, I strongly recommend Ian Ayres’ book Supercrunchers which goes into great detail on how firms and individuals […]
Posted in Behavior, Environment, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Nov 20th, 2012
Think about how passionate "E"nvironmentalists are about recycling. We are inundated with information how about recycling is essential to save the world, about how we are buried in trash, about how dangerous garbage is. Sure. OK. But think about what this means for a moment. One of the core missions of the US Environmental Protection […]
