Economist

Pundits are no better at forecasting election outcomes than they would be at predicting the final path of a hurricane. Smart pundits should consider either abandoning this activity or consulting with the geeks before rendering their guesses.

It is true that I am one of the co-authors of 'Nudge,' and I am a behavioral economist, but it does not mean that everything we write about in that book is behavioral economics, nor does it mean that my co-author, the distinguished legal scholar Cass Sunstein, is a behavioral economist.

Morality aside, there are other factors deterring 'strategic defaults,' whether in recourse or nonrecourse states. These include the economic and emotional costs of giving up one's home and moving, the perceived social stigma of defaulting, and a serious hit to a borrower's credit rating.

We could all use more coaching.

If you're not putting enough away for emergencies or retirement, making commitments in advance, such as signing up for payroll withholding, can help.

The good thing I will say about the Chicago School is that it was always about the world, not about the abstract.

One of society's thorniest problems is that children from poor families start school lagging badly behind their more affluent classmates in readiness.

I have an agent, John Brockman, who is an agent to many academic authors like Dan Gilbert and Steven Pinker, and he's very good at conning academics into writing books. He pulled this trick on me.

If no estate tax is imposed, capital gains taxes can be avoided indefinitely.

The more we turn down questionable offers like trip insurance and scrutinize 'one month' trials, the less incentive companies will have to use such schemes.

Arthur Laffer's idea, that lowering taxes could increase revenues, was logically correct. If tax rates are high enough, then people will go to such lengths to avoid them that cutting taxes can increase revenues. What he was wrong about was in thinking that income tax rates were already so high in the 1970s that cutting them would raise revenues.

The Nobel Prize is going to be 'fun money' - for an occasion, when my wife and I want a $50 bottle of wine.

Coining a term is not the same as creating a field!

If governments want to encourage good citizenship, they should try making the desired behavior more fun.

Even a mother - Jewish or not - can't worry about everything. So it is important that we limit our worries to real as opposed to imaginary risks.

We humans actually need help controlling our impulses - nudges.

Demanding that the rich get a tax cut as a condition for tax relief for others is simply elitist.

I don't think it says anywhere in the Bible that tithing should be calculated on a before-tax basis.

If you're trading individual securities, you're almost certainly making a mistake. Because most professional managers can't outperform their benchmarks, and there's little reason to think that individuals can.

God did not say that you should be able to borrow one hundred percent of the price of a house.