Economic Psychology

The controversial science that claims to have revolutionised economics. For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimise our own ‘utility’. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don’t really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to ‘cognitive biases’ with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement. 

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we are all susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes can make us poor and unhealthy. We often make bad decisions about education, personal finance, health care, family, and the environment.

Behavioral Economics: The Basics is the first book to provide a rigorous yet accessible overview of the growing field that attempts to uncover the psychological processes which mediate all the economic judgments and decisions we make. With recommended further readings throughout, this book is essential for all students taking courses in behavioral economics, economic psychology, consumer psychology, microeconomicsm and game theory, and also for professionals looking for an accessible introduction to the topic. 

This audiobook explains why people buy - and how to use that knowledge to improve pricing, increase sales, and create better, "brain-friendly" brand messaging. Become a more effective leader with the practical tools in this book. 

Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last 70 years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging. The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times. 

Our lives are minefields of misinformation. Stories, statistics and studies lie to us on a daily basis. Not only this but, as Professor Alex Edmans reveals, our brains lie to us too. He argues that we need to acknowledge and understand the role that our own human biases play in interpreting and digesting the information that we consume. It's only when we do, that we can actively resist being manipulated, and make informed decisions that improve our lives.

With the exception of sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than any other activity. It is central to our economy, our society, and the family. It underpins our finances and our sense of meaning in life. Given the overriding importance of work, we need to recognize a profound transformation in the nature of work that is significantly altering lives: the incoming tidal wave of shadow work. Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations.

Designers and managers hope their products become essential for users-integrated into their lives like Instagram, Lyft, and others have become. Such deep integration isn't accidental: it's a process of careful design and iterative learning, especially for technology companies. This guide shows you how to apply behavioral science—research that supports many products—to help your users achieve their goals using your product.

A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies that make it possible for organizations and societies to think at large scale. This "bigger mind" - human and machine capabilities working together - has the potential to solve the great challenges of our time. So why do smart technologies not automatically lead to smart results?

Inequality, social immobility, and political polarization are only a few crucial phenomena driven by the inevitability of social structures. Social structures determine who has power and influence, account for why people fail to assimilate basic facts, and enlarge our understanding of patterns of contagion - from the spread of disease to financial crises. Despite their primary role in shaping our lives, human networks are often overlooked when we try to account for our most important political and economic practices.

John Brockman, editor of This Will Make You Smarter, presents his latest thought-provoking audiobook, featuring insights from leading thinkers such as Steven Pinker, Lisa Randall, Matt Ridley, and Daniel C. Dennett. Drawing from the horizons of science, today's leading thinkers reveal the hidden threats nobody is talking about - and expose the false fears everyone else is distracted by. Encompassing neuroscience, economics, philosophy, physics, psychology, biology, and more - here are 150 ideas that will revolutionize your understanding of the world.

In this stunning audiobook, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers" - the best and the brightest, the most famous, and the most successful. He asks the question: What makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: That is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing.

The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts is the first book in The Great Mental Models series designed to upgrade your thinking with the best, most useful and powerful tools so you always have the right one on hand. This volume details nine of the most versatile all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making, your productivity, and how clearly you see the world.

In Super Bowl XLIX, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made one of the most controversial calls in football history: With 26 seconds remaining, and trailing by four at the Patriots' one-yard line, he called for a pass instead of a handing off to his star running back. The pass was intercepted, and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history. But was the call really that bad? Or did Carroll actually make a great move that was ruined by bad luck? Even the best decision doesn't yield the best outcome every time.

Spread through the public in the form of popular stories, ideas can go viral and move markets - whether it's the belief that tech stocks can only go up or that housing prices never fall. Whether true or false, stories like these - transmitted by word of mouth, by the news media, and increasingly by social media - drive the economy by driving our decisions about how and where to invest, how much to spend and save, and more. But despite the obvious importance of such stories, most economists have paid little attention to them. Narrative Economics sets out to change that.

Reputation touches almost everything, guiding our behavior and choices in countless ways. But it is also shrouded in mystery. Why is it so powerful when the criteria by which people and things are defined as good or bad often appear to be arbitrary? Why do we care so much about how others see us that we may even do irrational and harmful things to try to influence their opinion? In this engaging book, Gloria Origgi draws on philosophy, social psychology, sociology, economics, and more to offer an illuminating account of an important yet oddly neglected subject.

Few things in life are more satisfying than beating a rival. We love to win and hate to lose, whether it's on the playing field or at the ballot box, in the office or in the classroom. In this bold new look at human behavior, award-winning journalist and Olympian Matthew Syed explores the truth about our competitive nature: why we win, why we don't, and how we really play the game of life.

Can money buy happiness? Is income a reliable measure for life satisfaction? In the West after World War II, happiness seemed inextricably connected to prosperity. Beginning in the 1960s, however, other values began to gain ground: peace, political participation, civil rights, environmentalism.

Since 2007, entrepreneur and philanthropist Vikas Shah MBE has been on a mission to interview the people shaping our century. Including conversations with world leaders, Nobel prizewinners, business leaders, artists and Olympians, he quizzes the minds that matter on the big questions that concern us all. We often talk of war and conflict, the economy, culture, technology and revolutions as if they are something other than us. But all these things are a product of us - people like you, who have ideas that matter.

A Crisis of Beliefs makes us rethink the financial crisis and the nature of economic risk. In this authoritative and comprehensive book, two of today's most insightful economists reveal how our beliefs shape financial markets, lead to expansions of credit and leverage, and expose the economy to major risks.