Category: Behavioural Economics
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Survivorship Bias
In the early post-pandemic era, I was sitting in the synagogue (shul) one Saturday morning, at least 2 seats away from anyone else, my face covered by a mask. A hint of normalcy was beginning to return, and the Rabbi posed a question to the small number of congregants seated in front of him: Would […]
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Anchoring
We like to think we are smarter than we are, as Daniel Kahnemann famously said, “Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.” We like to think that we are above being caught out by ‘gimmicks’ and ‘tricks’, but in truth, the very […]
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Friendly Advice
What would you advise a friend to do? It turns out that the advice we give our friends is often very different to the advice we follow ourselves, according to a 2011 article published in the Journal of Marketing Research1. In a study carried out by Schwartz, Luce and Ariely, participants were split into two […]
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Smart Meters
“We can save 70 million trees if we all get a smart meter” In their advertising campaign, Smart Energy GB – a government-backed not-for-profit, claim that if we all installed smart meters, we can save 70 million trees. In a radio advert that aired in July 2018, Smart Energy GB claimed that consumers can save […]
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The 3 Laws of Human Behaviour
Several months ago I read a great article by Aline Holzwarth from the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University, in which she discusses 3 laws of human behaviour that parallel Newton’s 3 laws of motion. Given the theme of this blog, I thought it would be an excellent opener to ‘butcher’ some of her […]