Tag Archives: free

The Irrationality of Free

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One of the books I’ve been reading for Economics of Happiness, the best connections class to make you happy (maybe except for the wine-tasting one) is Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, who examines some of the incentives and day-to-day interactions we have, how they affect our decisions, and more specifically, how they nudge us towards irrational decisions. One idea that we can’t deal with very well is the idea of free, or costing zero. If something is free, or costs zero, our decision making about that thing changes considerably. Predictably Irrational discusses how when presented with an otherwise great deal Continue reading The Irrationality of Free→

Thesis Corner: Lorraine Black on Video Games

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Below I present an interview I had with our very own Lorraine Black, discussing her highly intriguing senior economic thesis. Let’s dive right in! Okay, first couple questions: what was the topic of your thesis, and why did you pick that? The topic of my senior thesis was the economic behavior of consumers that play free-to-play multiplayer online video games. I picked it because it struck me as pretty irrational behavior in a relatively new industry. Also I like video games. Good a reason as any. What were your findings? I conducted a survey of 300 League of Legends players Continue reading Thesis Corner: Lorraine Black on Video Games→

We Performed a Free Money Experiment, Results: Very Few Takers

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Last Friday fellow blog writer Janne and I decided to run a little experiment. The idea was simple enough: offer free money to everyone and see if they take it. The results were not so simple: hardly anyone took our money. Now it leaves us wondering why. Let’s set up the circumstances. Janne and I began tabling outside the SUB at 10:30 and stayed there until 12:00. All that was on our table was a jar of coins and 1 dollar bills, as well as sizeable sign that read “Free Money, No Joke No questions” with an arrow pointing to Continue reading We Performed a Free Money Experiment, Results: Very Few Takers→