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Rationally Speaking Podcast

Rationally Speaking #219 - Jason Collins on "A skeptical take on behavioral economics"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6787 Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2018

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, economist Jason Collins discusses some of the problems with behavioral economics: Why governments have started to rely too much on the field, and why that's bad; why it's suspicious that there are over 100 cognitive biases; when "nudges" are problematic; and more.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Today's episode of Rationally Speaking is sponsored by Givewell.

0:03.5

Givewell takes a data-driven approach to identifying charities where your donation can make a big impact.

0:09.4

Givewell spends thousands of hours every year vetting and analyzing nonprofits so that it can produce a list of charity recommendations that are backed by rigorous evidence.

0:17.9

The list is free and available to everyone online.

0:20.6

The New York Times has

0:21.3

referred to Givewell as, quote, the spreadsheet method of giving. Givewell's recommendations are

0:26.2

for donors who are interested in having a high altruistic return on investment in their giving.

0:30.7

Its current recommended charities fight malaria, treat intestinal parasites, provide vitamin A supplements,

0:35.6

and give cash to very poor people.

0:39.6

Check them out at give well.org.

0:58.3

Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.

1:02.9

I'm your host, Julia Galef, and my guest today is Jason Collins.

1:05.6

Jason is an economist based in Sydney.

1:11.8

He's the leader of the data science team for a financial services regulator, and blogs atason collins dot blog which is one of my new favorite blogs it's got very in-depth and interesting book reviews

1:18.7

of books in all sorts of areas of economics and commentary on different aspects of the important

1:25.3

debates in behavioral economics and evolutionary economics and related fields. So Jason, I'm excited to have you on rationally speaking finally.

1:33.2

Yeah, really pleased to join you. I'm a big fan of the podcast. Oh, yay. So first off, one thing I wanted to ask you is whether you consider yourself a behavioral economist, which, I mean, not that it matters that much, it's just a label.

1:45.2

But, you know, I'm curious whether the criticisms you are likely going to make in this podcast

1:50.7

of behavioral economics are coming from an insider or an outsider. It just kind of changes the tone.

1:56.4

I think I'll call myself an insider, because deep down down I am a big fan of behavioral economics.

2:01.2

It's just a case of, I think, that behavioral economics, or probably, as I prefer to call it a lot

2:06.0

of the time, behavioral science could be so much more.

...

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