Monthly Archives: August 2016

The market domain and the social domain – further thoughts on commodification

As more activities are commodified, we face tough trade-offs (Main image credit: Fabian Reus/Flickr) I never thought I’d find the matter of commodification even half as interesting as I ended up doing after Diane Coyle’s first response to Branko Milanovic’s … Continue reading

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Trading off for a better choice

Main image credit: Da Sal/Flickr If we don’t know what we gain and what we sacrifice, how good are our choices? It’s not clear how many believers there still are in the homo economicus, the rationally self-interested being who constantly calculates … Continue reading

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Save us from Commodification

Is increasing commodification a problem, and if so, can behavioural economics help avert it? Is the massive growth of the so-called sharing economy, typified by the likes of Uber and AirBnB, a sign of a trend towards a more closely … Continue reading

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Ethics are not for sale

Don’t use the economic way of thinking for justifying the death penalty What do a car manufacturer, a group of hungry friends, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Group Director Safety, Technical and Engineering of the UK’s … Continue reading

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The patterns of your mind

We can’t resist seeing significance, causality and agency where there is none Brussels, Monday 22 May 1967: a spring day marred by a chilly drizzle. Two days ago, my best friend had got a new pair of shoes, but there … Continue reading

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