The Undercover Economist

Dear Economist: Why don’t all waiters get their just desserts?

Tim Harford — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:22:09 +0000

Do waiters in mid-priced restaurants work less than those at high-end ones? If not, shouldn’t their tips be the same (in absolute terms)? Manoj Dear Manoj, I can see where you’re coming from: a 10 per cent tip on a £20 meal is less than a 10 per cent tip on a £100 meal. If it’s the same [...]

Why feedback can be just so much noise

Tim Harford — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:17:44 +0000

Should managers be giving more frequent performance appraisals? Do “customer feedback” questionnaires serve any useful purpose? The answers are not obvious. A feedback-free environment is not conducive to learning new skills, but then again, feedback itself can be confusing or demoralising. I suffered from both too little and too much feedback in my last year of [...]

Cass Talks - me on Dear Undercover Economist

Tim Harford — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:23:19 +0000

Alex Ritson of Cass Business School interviews me about Dear Undercover Economist.

The Big Questions

Tim Harford — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:43:34 +0000

Steven Landsburg, author of the original pop-econ book, the wonderful “The Armchair Economist”, is blogging in support of a new book, “The Big Questions: Tackling the problems of of philosophy with ideas from mathematics, economics and physics”. I expect he will infuriate everyone because that’s his style. The blog is here. The first two posts are [...]

What I’ve been reading: Why Most Things Fail

Tim Harford — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:22:10 +0000

This is Paul Ormerod’s offering from 2005. I’m catching up. I enjoyed the book very much, although felt the last chapters were by far the best and most original. In them Ormerod studies patterns of biological extinctions and corporate bankruptcies, looks at the mathematical models that best explain them, and concludes that businesses appear to [...]

Want to help? Then make life harder for the aid agencies

Tim Harford — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:14:19 +0000

A club sandwich, a pair of trousers, a ticket to the movies – in a typical market transaction, I choose and pay for my own desires. Sometimes, however, I might buy something for someone else, and here trouble begins. If I am buying something – a goat, an HIV prevention course, a bit of paved road [...]

Dear Economist: Loving and losing – is the cost too high?

Tim Harford — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:10:19 +0000

With the imminent passing of my pet rat I am faced with a lot of grief; he has been a great pet and so I will be more saddened by his passing than if he had been a bad one. My question is: is it possible for the cost (the grief from losing a friend/pet/family [...]

The joy of small numbers

Tim Harford — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:55:18 +0000

Michael Blastland, co-founder of More or Less, has a way with numbers: The language of politics is billions. Billions up, billions down, billions more, billions cut. Feeling dizzy about the state of the public finances when one telephone number of pounds succeeds another? Here’s a simple alternative, a language politicians seldom use, perhaps because it would be [...]

On my bookshelf (but not read yet)

Tim Harford — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:35:26 +0000

Mia de Kuijper, Profit Power Economics. Read more about it in the Times. William Higham, The Next Big Thing. A book about trend marketing. I am sceptical on principle but perhaps the book is good. Yoram Bauman, The Cartoon Introduction to Economics. I saw some early drafts and it looked very promising. Brian W. Arthur, The Nature of [...]

Steven Levitt in controversial claim shock…

Tim Harford — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:58:06 +0000

Perhaps I was naive in my reading of Superfreakonomics, but it didn’t occur to me that the chapter on geoengineering would stir up such a storm. I liked the book, but worried about the chapter. I wrote: As for the final chapter on global warming, it is a striking discussion of geo-engineering, surveying various schemes for [...]