Sendhil Mullainathan
Sendhil Mullainathan
Sendhil Mullainathan)is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and the author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. He was hired with tenure by Harvard in 2004 after having spent six years at MIT. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" and conducts research on development economics, behavioral economics, and corporate finance. He is co-founder of Ideas42, a non-profit organization that uses behavioral science to help solve social problems, and J-PAL, the MIT Poverty...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
CountryUnited States of America
earning gap less men paid pay permanent predict suggest women
It's 2014, and women are still paid less than men. Does this suggest that a gender pay gap is an unfortunately permanent fixture? Will it still be with us in 50 years? I would predict yes. But by that point, it will be men who will be earning less than women.
Things that price at $4.99 sell very differently than things that price at $5.
believed firmly teaches understanding
As a researcher, every once in a while you encounter something a little disconcerting. And this is something that changes your understanding of the world around you, and teaches you that you're very wrong about something that you really believed firmly in.
call people prices staring
People go shopping, we spend on so many things, and we just don't know. We don't know the prices of things. But gasoline, even when you're not buying, it's staring you in the face. Psychologists call this 'salience.'
charge diabetes effective few groups insurance managing plans proved whom
A few drugs - such as beta-blockers, statins and glycogen control medications - have proved very effective at managing hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and strokes. Most insurance plans charge something for them. Why not make drugs like these free? Not for everyone, but just the groups for whom they are provably effective.
fact
One cost, for the lonely: If you want to be interesting, the one thing you shouldn't do is really focus on the fact that 'I want this person to like me.' That's going to make you very uninteresting. But the lonely, they just can't help but focus on that.
credit ensure expansion fair goes great ingenious life opportunity president proposed quest require tax
We should try to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to find a great life. It's a quest that will require political will and ingenious policies. President Obama's proposed expansion of the earned-income tax credit goes in this direction, but we need more.
people perhaps
People will often take an interesting experimental study which has been done in the world, perhaps at small scale, and then it's touted as some big solution.
affect amount buy certain gas somebody spend time whom
For somebody for whom they're going to buy a certain amount of gas irrespective of the price, should they really spend so much time thinking about the price of gas? It doesn't affect anything they do.
ask middle people
If you go and stop people at a supermarket and ask them for their receipt and say, 'Hey how much did you just spend?' middle class shoppers have no idea. The poor know what they just spent.
sleep years work-out
Eat better or work out more, and youll see the benefits weeks, months or years down the road. Sleep more, and youll see the benefits tomorrow.
leaving needs calendars
Faced with a time shortage, we squeeze tasks into the nooks and crannies of our calendar, leaving less and less time to switch between them. As a result, we become less and less productive exactly when we need to be most productive.
new-year self years
January is always a good month for behavioral economics: Few things illustrate self-control as vividly as New Years resolutions. February is even better, though, because it lets us study why so many of those resolutions are broken.
real thinking world
Policymakers think that if they get the abstractions right, that will drive behavior in the desired direction. But the world happens in real time.