Category: Decision-making
-
Mark D. White In today's "The Upshot" in The New York Times, economist Aaron E. Carroll bemoans the fact that health policymakers, regulators, and spokespeople are reluctant, and sometimes even forbidden, to discuss and make use of information regarding the cost effectiveness of particular treatments. The fear is that they will invoke the spectres of…
-
Mark D. White In today's New York Times, David Brooks comments on libertarian paternalism in "The Nudge Debate." There is not a lot in his article that is surprising or unreasonable, but it does suffer from some vagueness and misunderstandings. For instance, Mr. Brooks conflates interventions of a paternalistic nature (such as nudging people into…
-
Mark D. White A recent issue of Science (October 5, 2012) is a special issue on depression, and senior editor Peter Stern's introduction lays out the reason for it (emphasis mine): Depression is a devastating disease. It affects not only the directly afflicted but also the people around them, their families, and their closest relations.…
-
Mark D. White New today from associate editor Brian Fung at The Atlantic is a piece on an experimental nutritional labeling system modeled on traffic lights. In use in the United Kingdom (where it was instituted by the British government's "nudge unit"), the revised nutrition labels would have color-coded icons for fat, calories, and other…
-
Mark D. White Last month, The Economist published an article (based on research published in Journal of Marketing) on consumers' irrationality when compared discounts and added content: Consumers often struggle to realise, for example, that a 50% increase in quantity is the same as a 33% discount in price. They overwhelmingly assume the former is better value.…
Mark D. White 