Behavioral Economics

The intersection of psychology and economics, behavioral economics looks at human tendencies that involve biology and culture when predicting and explaining economic decision-making.

How Much Do Average People Agree With Economists?

Average Americans disagree with the economic consensus for many issues according to surveys from the University of Chicago Booth School.

Pondering the Bunker Hill Theory of Inflation

As the source of monetary policy, the Federal Reserve has to decide if interest rates should rise when inflation is low but a jobs recovery has begun.

One Reason We Can’t Believe in Innate Talent

Limiting potential economic growth, the myth of innate talent in disciplines like philosophy diminishes the pool of female and Afro-American human capital.

Can Economists See the Hot Hand?

With implications that extend beyond sports, believers in classical economics and in behavioral economics are debating whether players can have streaks.

How Chocolate Chip Cookies Explain Why We Save Less

Explained by behavioral economics, we save relatively little for retirement because of intertemporal selfishness and seeing our future selves as strangers.

A Mystery: Trying to Find the Middle Class

While everyone refers to the middle class and most of us say we are in the middle class, few know the characteristics of the group to which they refer.

How Men Act When They Outnumber Women

How gender ratios in the U.S. and China affect men’s financial behavior can be explained with supply and demand and behavioral economics from Gary Becker.

Understanding a New Tax Issue

With the House requiring dynamic scoring of tax legislation from the CBO, the bigger tax debate resurfaces on how much redistribution and spending.

What a Blind Taste Test Showed About Beer

Behavioral economic ideas show that product differentiation and consumer preference are more from branding than the taste of colas or beers.

Alcohol, Marijuana or Tobacco: Which is Most Harmful?

When government miscalculates the negative externalities of substances like marijuana and alcohol, they waste land, labor, capital, time and money.