The foibles of traffic regulation
On Jan. 1, 2015, San Antonio will begin enforcing a new cell phone ban for drivers. The ban is, by many accounts, common sense and will catch the city up…
The return of rational
Introducing the new book by Eric Robert Morse—Psychonomics: How Modern Science Aims to Conquer the Mind and How the Mind Prevails. An excerpt from the book: Franz Gall was no…
- Behavioral Economics
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- Complexity
- Currency
- Economic Theory
- Free Market
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- Psychology
- Rational Choice Theory
- Self-Government
- Self-Reliance
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What if money didn’t matter?
How do you like to spend your life? What do you desire? what if money didn’t matter? What if money was no object? Alan Watts explores the possibilities. Put frankly…
The rhyme of unreason
From my forthcoming book on Behavioral Economics: You may not realize it, but you are irrational. At least, that is what researchers in a growing new science are saying. That…
The changing middle
(Cafe Hayek) This fascinating collection of charts from the Tax Foundation includes these two charts that show how much demographics have changed and how difficult it is to draw conclusions over…
Brand preference underscores culture divide
(LA Times) Democrats and Republicans can’t even agree on brands, preferring different restaurants, television channels and even gaming systems across the aisle, according to a new report. While Democrats say they most…
Sociality and coolness in modern times
One of the great motifs of modern times is coolness. In the early part of the 20th century, it began as a term of insouciance or what might be characterized…
Consumerism and consolidation
Recently, this image has been presented by a Facebook group called Exposing the Truth with the title “The Illusion of Choice”. The assumption is that these companies have conspired to…
The Prisoner’s Dilemma redux
(Freakonomics) Several years ago, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Joel Waldfogel and Matthew W. White, published a fascinating empirical article about the prisoner’s dilemma game embedded in the short-lived U.S. game show “Friend…
Government-first health care a risk to well-being
(Reason) For the past several years, the medical profession has been undergoing a disturbing transformation. The process was begun by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in an…
Can currents in childbearing be healthy for the economy?
(Child Trends) Having children outside of marriage–nonmarital childbearing–is increasingly common in the United States. A new Research Brief, Childbearing Outside of Marriage: Estimates and Trends in the United States, describes how…
Word frequency of the two parties
University of Chicago economist Matthew Gentzkow recently discussed a study he coauthored with Jesse Shapiro about newspaper bias with Levitt and Dubner of Freakonomics fame. They used a sample of…
14 Ways an Economist Says I Love You
Clever: (Fosslien.com) Give your loved one a nerdy Valentine and they’ll be yours forever! Why? Because if you give them diamonds/cufflinks this year, anything you get them next year will fall…
The parasite economy
From a recent Heritage release: This annual study by The Heritage Foundation analyzes federal assistance programs for everything from housing, health care, and food stamps to college tuition and retirement…
The Weight of the Union
Designed for Anytime Fitness and based on the fitness and nutritional habits of its 1.3 million members, the visual looks at the numbers behind obesity – how expensive it is…
- Austrian School
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- Polycentrism
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Is the government an agreement between the people, or is it a coercive force that dictates what the people do?
This question is at the heart of the great debate: Is the government an agreement between the people, or is it a coercive force that dictates what the people do?…
Good reads–The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
`The Righteous Mind’ presents an imaginative theory on the origins of human morality and the source of discord in the realm of moral systems such as politics and religion. It…
The dangers of storytelling
One interesting thing about cognitive biases – they’re the subject of so many books these days. There’s the Nudge book, the Sway book, the Blink book, like the one-title book,…
Good reads–Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
By many accounts, Daniel Kahneman is the father of his field, Behavioral Economics, which is a mix between behavioral psychology and traditional economics and has provided perhaps the most fascinating…