Behavioral

15 lessons in this hub.

Learn how arbitrary starting numbers warp judgments — from negotiations to valuations — and how to defend against anchors.

Meet the field that rebuilt economics around real human psychology — its key findings, methods, and what it changes about policy.

Learn Herbert Simon's foundational idea — satisficing, heuristics — and how cognitive limits shape economic behavior.

Learn the practice of designing choice environments — the tools, the ethics, and how to architect decisions well.

Learn why ownership inflates value — the classic mug experiments, the mechanisms, and what it means for markets.

Learn how logically identical options produce opposite choices when framed differently — and what this means for communication and policy.

Learn the economics of copying — information cascades, reputational herding, and how crowds become stampedes in markets.

Go deep on loss aversion — its measurement, its fingerprints across markets, and how to design around it.

Learn how defaults, social norms, and choice architecture steer behavior — the evidence, the ethics, and the limits.

Learn the three faces of overconfidence — overestimation, overplacement, overprecision — and their market consequences.

Master the most influential theory in behavioral economics — reference points, loss aversion, and probability weighting.

Learn the precise meaning of rationality in economics — axioms, expected utility — before judging the behavioral critiques.

Learn why we stick with current states — defaults, incumbency, and inertia — and how to design for (and against) stickiness.

Learn why we honor unrecoverable past investments — and how to make decisions on future costs and benefits only.

Learn the economics of self-control — hyperbolic discounting, present bias, and the commitment devices that help.