Economics
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A positive-sum game against nature
Whenever there is a major economic event (a rapid decline of stock prices, a spike in the price of oil, high unemployment, etc.) the media can be counted on to feature a person who was predicting these events all along. This should not be surprising because there are so many professional economists and commentators who [...]
Monkey business
According to those who research them, capuchin monkeys think only about two things: food and sex. As a result, the vast majority of their behaviors are also geared toward the acquisition of food and sex. Not surprisingly, these desires can be exploited to teach the monkeys other behaviors. However, no one has ever observed animals [...]
Robert Aumann on incentives and competition
On Barely A Blog, Ilana Mercer reports on Robert Aumann’s recent inaugural lecture of the Center for the Study of Judaism and Economics at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies. Robert Aumann, who won the 2005 Nobel prize in economics with Thomas Schelling, is known for his work on repeated games and the role of [...]
Social scientists predict the future
It is well established that investors with a diversified portfolio of index funds can do just as well (if not better) than “professional fund managers.” Now comes a new study that shows that consumers predict inflation as accurately as professional economists.
Thomas and Alan Grant of Baker University in Kansas analyzed surveys of U.S. and Australian [...]
