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
bottom care create discussion ensure growing income living outrage percent problem reasonable standard top worry
I worry about growing income inequality. But I worry even more that the discussion is too narrowly focused. I worry that our outrage at the top 1 percent is distracting us from the problem that we should really care about: how to create opportunities and ensure a reasonable standard of living for the bottom 20 percent.
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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.
Things that price at $4.99 sell very differently than things that price at $5.
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.'
break couple money rich until weeks work worrying
You and I can be busy, and we take a vacation from work. You can't take a break from being poor. You can't say, 'Hey I've had enough of worrying about money, I'm just going to be rich for a couple of weeks until I've recovered.'
onto people pictures sort type
You can get pictures into what people are sort of thinking about others. Just go onto Google and type 'Why are Indians' and then look for the autocomplete.
anyone case experience maybe
Maybe poverty is a special case of something else. That something else is 'scarcity,' and anyone who has the experience of 'having very little' experiences the same psychology.
although bandwidth cannot continues despite fully hard mental occupy original switching time
Task switching is hard because we do not control what is on our mind. Despite our efforts, the original task continues to occupy our mental bandwidth. Although we can control where our time goes, we cannot fully control how our bandwidth is allocated.
bandwidth dealing lives next spending
Organizations talk about spending their lives firefighting - dealing with the next problem without having the bandwidth to deal with what is down the pipeline. I think most of the poor have that problem.
given hearts
Our soft hearts are what tell us that, whatever the circumstances of birth, everyone must be given opportunities to do well.
benefits eat months work
Eat better or work out more, and you'll see the benefits weeks, months or years down the road. Sleep more, and you'll see the benefits tomorrow.
ahead good last people
No one would say, 'Hey, I think this medicine works, go ahead and use it.' We have testing, we go to the lab, we try it again, we have refinement. But you know what we do on the last mile? 'Oh, this is a good idea. People will like this. Let's put it out there.'
best colleague covet emotions feelings inequality instill noble outrage primal promote receive
Our outrage at inequality is primal. But primal emotions are not always noble ones. Of course, when I see a colleague receive some award, I covet it. But this is not me at my best, and these are not the feelings we would instill and promote in our children.
amazing deadline few four next people send tend time week within
If you send out one coupon with a deadline of a week and another that must be used within the next month, you end up having more redemptions with the one week deadline. It's really amazing. With the month deadline you have four times as much time, but people tend to say they'll use it in a few weeks' time and then they don't do it.