Predictions and Nudges: What Behavioral Economics Has to Offer the Humanities, and Vice-Versa (Book Review)
21 Pages Posted: 25 Aug 2014
Date Written: August 23, 2014
Abstract
This book review considers the intersection of work in behavioral economics and work in the humanities. It does so in the context of reviewing two books: Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's Nudge (2008) and Dan Ariel's Predictably Irrational (2008). To the extent that behavioral findings on decision making enrich economists' toolkits, they should be considered a success. But even after behavioral insights have been fully incorporated into economics, humanists will still have a virtual monopoly in answer the kinds of questions they deem to be important. the key to understanding human behavior, in all its richness and complexity, is to adopt the kinds of tools appropriate for the task at hand. Both rational social science and humanistic methods have their places and their uses, and each discipline has something to offer the other, particularly in areas -- such as the existence of unconscious motives or the importance of early childhood -- where economists and humanists can agree. These two books under review give us reason to think that these points of psychological agreement between economics and the humanities are very much worth exploring.
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