Sunday, April 03, 2005

Neuroeconomics. Business Week makes the bold proclamation that "The study of neuroeconomics may topple the notion of rational decision-making." Yeah, right. We've heard this all before, as "behavioral economics"--a form of economics that acknowledges the obvious: that emotions affect one's economic decisions. Though advertising and marketing have relied on emotions for over a century, mainline economics has always refused to acknowledge the role of emotions because doing so would undermine the basis of free-market economics (in other words, the idea that the market is the perfect arbiter of society's interests). Behaviorial economics is clearly more realistic than the classical model, but political forces so overwhelmingly disfavor it that it's a wonder Business Week even mentions it. (Though perhaps neuroeconomics--with its "scientific" dressing--sounds more palatable than "behavioral.") [Stay Free! Daily] Earlier coverage here at A blog doesn't need a clever name, from last month and from 2003. 3:28:05 PM    comment []

BTD SUNDAY COMICS [Begging To Differ] 3:23:15 PM    comment []

DHS's Identification Card. EPIC has published a nice analysis of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's new employee access card. [Schneier on Security] 12:09:46 PM    comment []

lileks has an opinion, too, about podcasting, including: Radio sometimes benefits from commercials. 10:16:38 AM    comment []

Do Taxes Thwart Growth? Prove It. Despite the widespread notion that taxes harm the economy, no one has actually been able to back that up. [NYT > Business] 7:53:02 AM    comment []

Pity the Billionaires. THIS year's Forbes list of the world's billionaires is out, and as usual, the news is bad. You didn't make it. Neither did I. By DANIEL AKST. [NYT > Business] 7:44:38 AM    comment []

academic strategy. Phil Agre's Networking on the Network, which I've mentioned before, is an amazingly thorough article on how to succeed in academia, from the grad student phase through the first ten years, at least, of having a "real job". One of the reasons I appreciate my PhD advisor so much is that he actually taught me [...] [jill/txt] 7:44:37 AM    comment []

Opponents of Wal-Mart to Coordinate Efforts. Led by Wal-Mart's longtime opponents in organized labor, a new coalition is planning the first coordinated assault intended to press the company to change its business practices. By STEVEN GREENHOUSE. [NYT > Business] 7:43:50 AM    comment []