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BehavioralEconomics.com
Company blog · behavioraleconomics.comeconomics
BehavioralEconomics.com is the company blog at behavioraleconomics.com, writing about economics. Since 2015, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 16 times, most often “An Introduction to Behavioral Economics”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-14, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this site's mini-encyclopedia of behavioral economics as a reference for named biases and concepts such as loss aversion, sunk cost, sludge and choice overload. No comment judges the writing itself.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Home of the Behavioral Economics Guide and the Behavioral Economics Academy. A behavioral science hub hosting information, discussions and resources.
Most-linked posts?
- An Introduction to Behavioral Economics2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-01-27
What Hacker News says?
Capitalism isn't inherently short-term oriented. No, but people do tend to be. We seem to be wired to value near-term gains much more strongly than long-term gains -- http://www.behavioraleconomics.com/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/t... This then drives us to create the systems that focus on near-term rewards – like the quarterly reporting and equities that can be traded at a moment's notice, etc. etc.
Comment linking /mini-encyclopedia-of-be/time-temporal-discounting/
on “Profits are too high. America needs a giant dose of competition”Submitted The Behavioral Economics Guide 2021 as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> Any given year there are only 5-6 iPhones to choose from, where there are plenty of Android phones. There is such a thing as 'too much' choice: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue * https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclope... * https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/choice-overload-bias
Comment linking /resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/choice-overload/
on “iMessage with PQ3 Cryptographic Protocol”Submitted The modern peril of the availability heuristic as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIn behavioral economics that’s sometimes referred to as “social norms versus market norms” [first useful link, 1]. The example given (I think it’s via Ariely) is that you wouldn’t pay your friend to have cooked you dinner. This is the same thing: there’s social contract value in helping your friend out, and they’re showing appreciation with a token . In fact, if you friend offers you more money than the pizza and be…
Comment linking /resources/introduction-behavioral-economics/
on “The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret”Submitted An Introduction to Behavioral Economics as a story · 2 points
HN discussionWhat the author didn't mention explicitly is the obvious sludge techniques used in media subscription models. ( https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclope... ) In case of The Economist, to which I'm subscribed, you have to call them...on a phone...like it's the 80s The worst offender of the type is scribed.com that has a fake "we're sorry to see you leave" page before you actually hit the final "ye…
Comment linking /resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/sludge/
on “Won’t Subscribe”Submitted The behavioral economics guide 2018 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYou're entering the world of behavioral economics and heuristics, championed most extensively by Kahneman and Tversky. Here's an overview: https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/introduction-behavioral-...
Comment linking /introduction-behavioral-economics/
on “The Economy”Submitted Availability heuristic as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI came in to say that this was one of the tidbits of info I always held onto from business school. The whole point of understanding sunk costs is avoiding the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Everytime I hear a sports talk radio guy talking about how much an overpaid and underperforming player is still going to play I pull my hair out. https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclope...
Comment linking /resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/sunk-cost-fallacy/
on “Ignore Sunk Costs (2009)”Submitted The Behavioral Economics Guide 2015 as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> Extremest views are also usually held by younger people, which immediately should be put up to more scrutiny, simple based on a lack of knowledge and life experience. On the other hand, as people get older they start to lose fluid intelligence and deliberative capacity and instead more regularly fall back on gut feelings and intuitions that might no longer apply in the present the same way they did in the past wit…
Comment linking /three-behavioral-insights-into-the-ageing-mind/
on “The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia”It actually is a bias, I just probably didn't do the concept justice in explaining it. https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclope... I think what you're referring to is more akin to uncertainty risk.
Comment linking /resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/present-bias/
on “For the first time there's more people worldwide aged 65+ than aged 5 & younger”I agree in theory but loss aversion: https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/... indicates that most people won't want to convert one car parking spot into 10 bike parking spots or 20 scooter parking spots until after people have realized how convenient and fast alternatives are. That, combined with status-quo bias and city bureaucracy, is a major problem. In the meantime, vast numbers of large d…
Comment linking /mini-encyclopedia-of-be/loss-aversion/
on “Boosted Boards founders launch heavy-duty scooter renter Skip”Related, via https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3T6p93Mut7G8qdkAs/evaluabili... > According to Hsee—in a paper entitled “Less is Better”—if you buy someone a $45 scarf, you are more likely to be seen as generous than if you buy them a $55 coat. and https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclope... > When objects are evaluated separately rather than jointly, decision makers focus less on attributes that ar…
Comment linking /resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/less-is-better-effect/
on “The Effect of Wrapping Neatness on Gift Attitudes”
