Author Archives: Andrew Monaco

Economics Undergraduate Research Opportunity!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

The Department of Economics at UPS requests proposals for the Kriens Fund for Economics Student Research Awards for 2013-14. Successful proposals will receive funding to engage in a proposed project with an identified project mentor from the economics faculty. The award supports basic research that enhances understanding of a well-defined economics research question.  While not a requirement for funding, award allocation includes a preference for funding projects seeking solutions and outcomes that promote land management and conservation.   The application deadline for funds this year is April 25, 2014.  For additional instructions, including an application for Kriens funds, please click here!

Faculty Feature: A Workshop on Reflexivity

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

[From time to time, Sound Economics will feature contributions from across the economics faculty at the University of Puget Sound. In our first Faculty Feature segment, Wade Hands discusses his recent participation in a conference on reflexivity and the work of George Soros. -Andrew] In October, I attended an interesting workshop in Budapest that may interest readers of Sound Economics. The topic of the workshop was George Soros’s Theory of Reflexivity and Its Relationship to Economic Methodology. Most readers know George Soros as a successful investor and philanthropist and probably do not realize that he has written a number of books on Continue reading Faculty Feature: A Workshop on Reflexivity→

On Tails

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Tail events, in probability speak, are extreme events with the potential for a very large impact but which have a very low likelihood of occurring. Many people (I think accurately) view the most recent financial crisis as the occurrence of a tail event: it was highly unlikely that the system would experience such a drastic collapse, but it happened. We might consider the change of nuclear war or alien invasion as a tail risk. In N. Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan, Taleb discusses the dangers of such risks with an analogy: even if you have encountered thousands of swans in your lifetime, and have never Continue reading On Tails→

The Wrong Track

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

In Simpler: The Future of Government, Cass Sunstein sets the behavioral economics stage by framing the impacts of either staying the course or effortfully taking an action. Often, the choices we make can be thought of as either “do nothing” (and stay the course) or “do something” and decide to engage in a particular action. So the decision to eat a brownie might be a decision between saying the course (not eating because I’m ok with the status quo) and taking the action (chowing down). Many of us are particularly inclined to do … well … nothing. This effect, the status quo bias, has been well-documented. Since it Continue reading The Wrong Track→

What is Availability Bias?

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

The way we develop our own ideas of the likelihood of an event happening can be greatly influenced by the environment around us. These “subjective probabilities” then form the basis of decisions we make when there is risk involved – but if these probabilities are off, we can end up making decisions that are off the mark. The concept of availability bias describes how new or recently observed information can skew your perception of an event’s probability. This can occur subtly and surprisingly easily. Imagine your decision whether or not to purchase a lottery ticket. Most tickets have the odds right on Continue reading What is Availability Bias?→