Beyond the Dismal Science
PsyFi Search Thursday, 5 February 2015 Beyond the Dismal Science The Passionate Science Back in the nineteenth century Thomas Carlyle described economics as “the dismal science”, a term that’s been wheeled out ever since whenever some hackneyed journalist or febrile blogger feels the need to criticise something to do with money. It’s a snappy little […]
So, What IS the Point of Financial Advisers?
PsyFi Search Monday 23 June 2014 So, What IS the Point of Financial Advisers? Conflicted Consumers of environmentally friendly products are more likely to steal; and advisers who disclose their conflicts of interest are more likely to do the same – although they’ll call it something different, of course. Performing a morally good action will […]
CEOs: The More You Pay Them, The Worse They Perform
PsyFi Search Monday, 30 June 2014 CEOs: The More You Pay Them, The Worse They Perform The Peter Principle “Every new member in a hierarchical organization climbs the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of maximum incompetence” The Peter Principle states that everyone gets promoted to a level at which they’re incompetent. More generally Lawrence […]
Curiouser and Curiouser: Incentives Through the Looking Glass
PsyFi Search Tuesday 12 March 2013 Curiouser and Curiouser: Incentives Through the Looking Glass Demotivated by Design The world is full of schemes aiming to incentivize us; we’re spurred on to achieve new targets and scale new heights by the carrot of lucre-based incentivization schemes designed to appeal to our selfish natures. Which is not […]
Is Your CEO A Psychopath?
PsyFi Search Thursday 10 May 2012 Is Your CEO A Psychopath? “She was interviewing a psychopath. She showed him a picture of a frightened face and asked him to identify the emotions. He said he didn’t know what the emotion was but it was the face people pulled just before he killed them.” (The Psychopath […]
When Incentives Go Bad
PsyFi Search Tuesday, 13 December 2011 When Incentives Go Bad Strings Attached: Untangling the Ethics of Incentives by Ruth W. Grant Way back in ’76, when heels were high, flares were wide and hair was long (for the men, at least) a couple of dudes called Michael Jensen and William Meckling proposed a solution to […]
A Lollapalooza Effect – Capitalism & The Death of Wang Yue
PsyFi Search Tuesday 25 October 2011 A Lollapalooza Effect – Capitalism & The Death of Wang Yue Morality and Cuture Wang Yue, a two-year old Chinese girl, has died after she was run down in the street, then run over again as the driver made off, then ignored by eighteen passers-by and a collection of […]
On Incentives, Agency and Aqueducts
PsyFi Search Wednesday 18 August 2010 On Incentives, Agency and Aqueducts Risk Management, Roman StyleThere’s an aqueduct in Segovia, in Spain, that’s stood the test of time. A lot of water has flowed over that bridge … two thousand years worth, more or less, since it was built by the Roman Empire. Back then risk […]
Greed’s Not Good For Shareholders
PsyFi Search Saturday 12 June 2010 Greed’s Not Good For Shareholders Don’t Aim to Maximise Shareholder ValueWhen we look at the genuinely successful business people of our time, that happy band of folks who’ve created true shareholder value, enriching themselves and their followers to an astonishing degree, we find an extraordinary thing. The vast majority […]
CEO Pay – Because They’re Worth It?
PsyFi Search Wednesday 14 April 2010 CEO Pay – Because They’re Worth It? Poor Chief ExecutivesIn the United States CEO pay dropped by an average of 2% in 2009. Still, ordinary workers needn’t shed too many tears as the average total compensation for an S&P500 CEO hovered around the $11 million mark. Perhaps more significant […]