Category: Posts by Mark D. White
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Oh, Mayor Bloomberg–you make writing a book about libertarian paternalism and nudges too easy. (Thanks!) But seriously, you help show why it's important to write this book, that's it's not just some pie-in-the-sky idea that lives only in the ivory tower, but one that affects the real world. Yesterday The New York Times reported that…
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Mark D. White In The New York Times over the weekend, Tim Jackson contributed a piece titled "Let's Be Less Productive." In it, he decries the modern obsession with productivity gains, while recognizing the role it has played in increasing standards of living. He cites necessarily stagnant productivity in the arts, services, and craft industries, which William Baumol…
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Mark D. White In this morning's New York Times, James Atlas discusses recent books about cognitive processes and neuroscience, such as Jonah Lehrer's Imagine: How Creativity Works, Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, and Leonard Mlodinow's Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior. Atlas…
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Mark D. White In this morning's Wall Street Journal, James Bovard pokes a little fun at the US government's plans for measuring gross domesic happiness (of which Nicolas Sarkozy was a leading advocate), pointing to how well they currently measure the myriad economic statistics regarding things that aren't entirely subjective. Many economists take this very seriously,…
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Mark D. White This weekend's Wall Street Journal featured an article by Helen Sword entitled "Yes, Even Professors Can Write Stylishly," in which she criticized the quality of writing by most academics–and praised the exceptions, explaining some features that make good academic writing shine. (More can be found in her book, Stylish Academic Writing.) Having…
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Mark D. White In this morning's The Stone column in The New York Times, UNC visiting professor Iskra Fileva offers "Character and Its Discontents," in which she writes eloquently on the nature of character in response to the situationist critiques of Gilbert Harman and John Doris. Her article doesn't lend itself well to quotes–it really…
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Mark D. White In this morning's New York Times, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel writes about the presentation of nutritional labels on food packaging. He begins: Research suggests that consumers spend only about one second looking at nutrition information when making myriad choices. A parent dashing through the grocery store aisles with kids in tow has…
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Mark D. White This morning's Baby Blues comic strip falls under the category "out of the mouths of babes": Even litte Hammie knows that it isn't always about the numbers–sometimes it's about the principle of that matter! This made me think of Amartya Sen's example of counterpreferential choice in which a person has to choose…
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Mark D. White In his column in this morning's New York Times, Mark Bittman reiterates his call for regulation of the amount of sugar Americans consume, such as taxing sugary foods and adding them to the list of items for which food stamps cannot be used–nothing new there. (I've discussed Bittman before here.) After presenting…
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Mark D. White In the New York Times, psychologist Barry Schwartz (author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less) warns us of "The Danger of Too Much Efficiency," in which he argues that, while efficiency is generally a good thing and enables increases in standards of living, more efficiency is not necessarily better.…
Mark D. White 