Ok, while the tiny habits idea was compelling 48 hours ago, and is already having its impact on me, the notion of a daily series posting ideas I have come across may be too ambitious for all concerned. Hence, occasional.
Richard Thaler was a professor when I arrived as a graduate student at Cornell University in 1988. He was, not surprisingly, awesome. But I had no real clue how much so, since it was all relative to my other professors who were also mostly awesome. In recent years it has become more verifiably clear, the scale of his awesomeness measured well by the popularity of his recent books. Also, awesome enough to make a cameo (in the scene at the casino table alongside Selena Gomez) in the great film The Big Short, which I also recommend. But for now, take advantage of this podcast:
In the new book Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, Richard Thaler, coauthor of Nudge and a behavioral science and economics professor at the University of Chicago, recounts his struggle to change the way traditional economists look at the impact of human psychology on economics. Wharton operations, information and decisions professor Katherine Milkman recently spoke with Thaler about why he wrote the book, where behavioral economics has had the most impact, and which decision-making bias he would remove if he had a magic wand.