Yun-men asked a monk if he preferred a cup of tea with one grain of sugar to one with 2 grains of sugar. The monk replied he would not know the difference
Then Yun-men proposed a row of 1000 cups, each differentiated from the next by one grain of sugar
The monk was enlightened.
Almost 29 years to the day before Theodore Kaczynski died in a Federal prison cell in North Carolina, I was a newly-minted PhD working as an antitrust consultant in Princeton when I received a strange package. 🧵1/10
A few minutes later, the bomb squad guys walked out, lugging their suitcases and smiling. One of them leaned over and whispered to me, "Save the whales!" 10/10
I looked at the tape. It was a training video on how to engage in environmental activism. It was from the Sierra Club, which I had recently joined. It all fit: San Francisco, and the box I'd checked on a recent mailer about getting more involved.
I felt pretty sheepish. 9/n
So, taking the package, I went to the Princeton police. The first thing the officer there did was tell me I should have gone to the Princeton TOWNSHIP police, not the Princeton BORO police. Not their jurisdiction, since I'd received the package in the Township, not the Boro. 4/10
About 15 minutes later, he and another officer came out to tell me that the package was highly suspicious and that they had called the New Jersey State Bomb Squad. Would I please wait? It would take the squad about an hour to arrive. Now very glad I'd come, I said "Sure." 6/10
@johnjhorton
Along somewhat similar lines, I owned my car for 6 years in grad school and didn't realize until the day I sold it that it had a fold-down rear seat.
I will say this... The buyer noted that I learned this functionality on the fly and that clinched the sale.
Another half hour passed as I sat tensely, expecting a loud noise or other signs of commotion.
Finally, the officer who'd originally greeted me came out and handed me a VHS tape. This was what was in the package, he said. 8/n
The package was a 10x13 manila envelope containing something rectangular. It had no return address but had been postmarked in San Francisco. I didn't know who in San Francisco might have sent me an unmarked package. No one I knew there had told me to expect anything. 2/10
Like everyone I'd been hearing a lot about a person called the Unabomber who'd been sending exploding packages to people with PhDs. The packages were typically mailed from the Bay Area.
I didn't see why this Unabomber would target me.
Still I didn't like this one bit. 3/10
About 90 minutes later two men in uniforms arrived. They were carrying big suitcases, which I assumed contained the squad's defusing equipment
The men told me that their job would be to either open or else destroy the package I'd brought. They would let me know what happened 7/n
So much in academic economics is a signaling game. LaTeX is a signal of a certain insider group status - having invested in the group’s values and the group’s rituals
Danny Kahneman was incredibly accomplished and simply a mensch. When I was a grad student he let me audit his ug psych course in decision-making, even though the room was packed. He gave me comments on my first paper. He set my career on its course. I owe him a huge debt.
RIP
One thing about the Twitter study I have not seen commented on: the persistent obsession that economists have with focusing on behaviors in their own profession as an object of study.
Why? Who cares about academic economists as much as… academic economists?
Wow.
(It's not clear that the boost to downstream outcomes like flyouts could hold in long-run equilibrium, or that added visibility really is the mechanism driving it. But still, pretty striking, QED!)
It's really impossible to explain the prevalence of successful, long-term marriages during recorded history without a model of motivated preference. A 🧵, 1/14
Tolkien was a conservative. Environmentalism is not a left or right issue. It is about loving the world enough to sacrifice your short term gain for it.
Older son just got into b-school at Booth and Kellogg, so he and I will be in Chicago on 7/26 and 7/27 to check both out!
#EconTwitter
Chicago friends: if you are around then and up for pitching your school to my kid (and maybe a stroll around campus), pls DM me. Thanks! 🙏😉
🥳🙌I am very excited to announce that my paper “Focusing As Commitment” has been accepted into the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization! 🧵👇 with an overview. 1/10
Great to see that you can now read "Thoughts Matter: A Theory of Motivated Preference" without need to access through your library, via this direct link:
My first published paper turns 30 next month! It models in effect how deceptive advertising is a hack that exploits individual bounded rationality
@add_hawk
I am delighted to announce that I have been awarded a Sabbatical Fellowship from the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at
@CUBoulder
and will accordingly be visiting CU-Boulder during 2024-25.
Looking forward to enjoyable and productive year! Go Buffs!
My son’s iPhone was stolen in the NYC subway right after Thanksgiving while he was en route back to college. Then the impossible occurred:
@NYPDTransit
detectives recovered it. The phone is now safely back in our house. Thank you NYPD! 🙏😌
My recent work has challenged this assumption. Psych research suggests that people change their stated preference for objects after they've committed to them. And recent work confirms that choice-induced preference change is integral to the decision process... 8/14
@generic_void
I dunno… The first year of a grad program is intense. With problem sets, lectures, and readings I felt like I was eating, sleeping and breathing Econ. If I’d had to talk to someone in bed about the same things I would’ve gone nuts 😂
Yesterday my car was hit while parked next to a restaurant I was eating in. Normally, a crash like this would be a major drag. There is, at minimum, the prospect of a police report,insurance,body shop... and another driver (who one's priors suggest is adversely selected) 🧵1/14
When I was in 3rd year of PhD, though I didn’t take much interest in the papers in AER, QJE, and JPE, I was fascinated by advertising. Why did people pay attention to it? No one had a good explanation. I thought: what if it’s bc we’re boundedly rational?
When I was in 3rd year of PhD, I read every paper published in AER, QJE, JPE from 2000-2020, bc I wanted to get a sense of what everyone was working on. It took I think 3 full time months, spread out over half a year or so? Was great and gave me a bunch of useful perspective
@ben_golub
Feynman did have some nice things to say about economics more generally. At least relative to the other social sciences. He reserved his worst wrath for psychology.
Theory of the second best is right at home in this meme... Though it seems my intermediate micro students would be the ideal audience for this, maybe not so much
#EconTwitter
?
what do you guys think is going on with the apparently quite broad human instinct to copy and repeat each other's jokes? are jokes supposed to be memetic?
what do you guys think is going on with the apparently quite broad human instinct to copy and repeat each other's jokes? are jokes supposed to be memetic?
When I was a senior in college, I experienced a crisis. I had everything: good grades, wonderful girlfriend, every reason to expect a bright future. And yet - almost suddenly it seemed - I found I was miserable. A 🧵... 1/9
I am very pleased to announce that my article "Thoughts Matter: A Theory of Motivated Preference" is now published at Theory and Decision. Here is a link:
#adjustment2choice
@ben_golub
Just to be clear: this illustrates not the adverse effects that come from policy taking its cue from academics, but rather the misguided impression among academics that they have any influence on policy.
The thumb on the scale benefiting wealthy students in university admissions (Chetty et al NBER) is tied up, for at least some unis, in the need to balance tuition losses from financial aid granted to excellent needy students...as I argue in this paper:
@causalinf
With my own career, I pursued the unusual sequence: PhD-industry-academia. And I’m here to tell you: industry is mostly boring. You don’t choose your own projects, don’t get the time to study things properly & you’re inevitably pressured to conform results to what’s desired.
🏃🏃♀️tip: To avoid beating up on yourself over performance, remember that most of what determines how fast your run is is exogenous.
The main endogenous factor is your decision to run at all!
So just get outside and go!
#ECON5K
@the_econ5k
🚨ALERT!🚨My paper, "Focusing As Commitment," newly published at JEBO, is available for download for free until December 27. Please use this link:
BTW it's officially "in print" in the December 2023 issue 👌
🥳🙌I am very excited to announce that my paper “Focusing As Commitment” has been accepted into the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization! 🧵👇 with an overview. 1/10
@economeager
@ArmandDoma
Same. The objective of the far right is to see government fail. So naturally installing far right people in government results in a government that fails, and then people blame… government
@Andrew___Baker
No, I agree. The tweet presumes contributions to knowledge should be judged by how accessible they are to a broad audience. While accessibility is always desirable, it’s not a relevant criterion for advancing science.
When I teach theory of production in intermediate micro, I talk about food trucks.
Adding a new plant = adding a new truck, or you can add sandwich presses to an existing truck.
What happens when you add more workers to your truck without more sandwich presses?
And so on.
Thrilled to see that my paper co-authored with
@DiSalvoCCNY
, “Police Unions, Race, and Trust in the Police,” is now in print at Political Science Quarterly.
Gary Charness demonstrated many remarkable things in the lab. But he also showed us something remarkable by his example: that starting on a path even in midlife, one can go on to achieve great things.
RIP
I have a sabbatical coming in 2024-25. Any thoughts on where I should visit? I plan to work on finishing the book I’ve just started, but also open to new collaborations in behavioral econ theory and experimental work. Any/all suggestions welcome! 🙏😊
Just completed 12.4 mile run on the Patriots Path near Morristown.
Waiting now for my son, who is doing additional mileage. (His goal for the day is 19 miles!) 🏃🏃♂️