Conventional economic wisdom holds that the more emotionally attached we are to something — our home, a cool car, a …
behavioral economics
How Much Does The Big Boss Really Matter? (A Partial Defense of Jamie Dimon)
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is scheduled to testify before a Senate committee later this week, the latest in a series of comeuppances in the wake of his firm’s massive trading losses earlier this year. The spectacle will no …
Proof That Many Hackers — Call Them the Anti-Zuckerbergs — Value Freedom More Than Money
In the 1987 movie Wall Street, the character Gordon Gekko famously declared that “greed is good,” a line that has come to symbolize the darkest aspects of materialism. But the latest research from Wharton management professor …
Why We Need More Female Traders On Wall Street
The resignation of JPMorgan Chase exec Ina Drew in the wake of the banking giant’s recent $2 billion trading loss is troubling news for many reasons, but one of the most important rarely gets mentioned: Trading operations need …
How Baby Names Can Help Marketers Predict the Next Big Thing
Few parents would admit to naming their baby after a hurricane. But unconsciously that might be exactly what many of us are doing — or at least appropriating the sounds of a name that, if the storm grows large enough, is …
The Official Blog Post of Beer and Football: Why Sports Sponsorships Work
The sixth MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, taking place this weekend in Boston, is for a few thousand people on this planet the Woodstock of sports geekery. Think: Fantasy Football + Comic-Con + Math Olympics!
I say this …
License To Sin: When Good Behavior Leads To Bad Results
Most people are taught early to believe in what we might call “momentum morality”: the idea that good (or bad) actions lead to further good (or bad) habits. Economists and other philosophical types call these feedback loops …
The Secret to Memorable Vacations: Keep ’Em Short and End ’Em Sweet
In an earlier post we described research showing that people get more long-lasting satisfaction from money spent on experiences than money spent on material goods. If you read that post and took it to heart — humor us — an …
Why (Bill) Size Really Does Matter
In some Big Apple circles there’s a concept referred to as “The New York City Street Tax.” This isn’t anything official. Rather, the idea is that the simple act of walking through the city—walking through any bustling city, …
The Blackberry Moral (Or: The Trouble With Too Many Options)
We were intrigued but not surprised by a recent article in the New York Times detailing troubles at Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry. Among several problems facing the Canadian tech company is an overabundance of …
Why You’re Probably Financially Better Off Than You Feel
There’s no question that for many (if not most) Americans, today’s economy is challenging for numerous reasons we need not list. For a lot of people, though, their sense of economic vulnerability is greater than their actual …
Profitable Nonviolence
How the surprising effects of violent movies can help us to make smarter money decisions.
