Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

File under: the history they did not teach me in school. The Stono Rebellion (also known as “Cato’s Conspiracy”) begins on this day (9 September) in 1739 in the colony of South Carolina. It is the largest and most violent … Continue reading →

As you probably have heard by now, last Friday (4 September) the judge presiding over the Lindsay Clancy case in Plymouth, Mass., declared a mistrial after a lone holdout juror had blocked a unanimous verdict after seven days of tense … Continue reading →

If this haunting track sounds familiar, it’s because it was released by the Swedish artist Kasbo back in 2018.

I began this series of blog posts on 22 August by asking whether Adam Smith was a closet Bayesian. Today, I draw this series to a close by concluding that Adam Smith was a closet behavioral economist who made several … Continue reading →

To my North American readers, Happy Labor Day Weekend! Now, to the business at hand. This past week we have been surveying how Adam Smith uses lotteries in Book I, Chapter 10 of The Wealth of Nations — actual state-run … Continue reading →

In my previous post “The Army as Lottery“, we saw how according to Adam Smith in Paragraph 30 of Chapter 10 of Book I of The Wealth of Nations, “romantic hopes” of heroism and glory are what motivate many young … Continue reading →

In my previous post, we saw how the direct relationship between youth and risk-taking — the now-commonplace observation that young people are especially vulnerable to wishful thinking and risk-seeking thrills — can be traced back to Book I, Chapter 10 … Continue reading →

Thus far this week (see here and here), we have seen why Adam Smith can be considered to be the founder of behavioral economics. In summary, what Smith calls this “absurd presumption in [our] own good fortune” (i.e. optimism bias) … Continue reading →

Happy “1st of tha Month“! My previous post presented Adam Smith’s analysis of the psychology of lotteries. In summary, we buy lottery tickets out of the “vain hope” we might win a jackpot, i.e. we are motivated by the size … Continue reading →

A strong case can be made that Adam Smith is the first behavioral economist, for he diagnoses not one but two major cognitive quirks in Paragraph 26 of Chapter 10 of Book I of The Wealth of Nations: the overconfidence … Continue reading →