A recent Slate article comments on work in Psychological Science in which people are used for an experiment (the 'people' are probably university students) on moral behaviour and 'buying green'. The subjects are asked 'What do you want to buy from Online Store X' (the experimenters manipulate the store's stocks), which is all good and fits with experimental protocols (oh yes, though it's imaginary, and they aren't spending money, so hey?). What is not cool, not cool...

I have split this post into two sections: non-fiction (Part I) and fiction (Part II). All as a consequence of reading more than I've felt like writing about what I've read. But, I know that the content always cements itself better when I write about it. Non-fictionFriedrich Hayek - The Fatal Conceit I have enormous respect for Hayek because he has an interesting methodological take on economics and because he supports evolutionary methods in economics. First, ...

Continuing my series on risk aversion, competition and gender (see my first post here) after a long hiatus, today's papers try to assess whether risk and competition preferences are determined by 'nature', something inherent in women, or 'nurture', the environment in which the person grew and came to be socialised, or some combination of the two, or maybe something which is residual and unexplained. Moreover, are risk-preferences 'state-based' - are they contingent...