As I hinted in an earlier post, Thaler and Sunstein aren’t personally contributing much to the blog advertising their book. Consequently, the ‘Nudge’ blog has been middling.
Today, Thaler posted on value in the NFL draft. Good post, and hopefully a sign of things to come.
Dick Thaler and Cass Sunstein have a blog promoting their new book. Who knows how much (if any) they personally contribute… but I guess they wanted to be on the bandwagon.
The ‘Nudge’ concept (though not by that catchy phraseology) has been dear to my heart since my first consideration of the “alarm clock across the room” antinomy… and thus the momentary, conceptual clarity of “rational choice” recedes back into the hazy complexity of existence. Alas, reflections on youth.
Matt, this is for you:
Paul Krugman’s Theory of Interstellar Trade
Abstract: This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest rates on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer traveling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved… This paper, then, is a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics.
Think of the contrast here as the difference between science-fiction writers and engineers. Reich and Galston are the kinds of people who’d sketch out the idea for time travel in a moment of inspiration. Goolsbee et al. could rig up the DeLorean that would actually get you back to 1955.
Nestled away in today’s Krugman op-ed is a reminder: Strong partisan preference can engender indifference to fairness on the field of play.
As an aside, I don’t believe that “hero-worship” characterizes the Obama support… but certainly a non-trivial chunk of it.
tybor recommends: The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer