Decision Science News
| December 7, 2015
Elke Weber of CDS and CRED spoke at the Germany Academy of Sciences Symposium (Leopoldina) entitled "Dealng with risk and uncertainty: a challenge for policy makers."
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Decision Science News
| June 14, 2015
Cass Sunstein reviews Richard Thaler's new book, The Mischievous Science. Thaler's book is an account of the struggle to bring the discipline of economics down to earth. He aims to change the way people think about the field, themselves and the world. Sunstein's review discusses much of the history of behavioral economics. He mentions that while scientists such as Elke Weber have made much progress on the subject of answering questions about heterogeneity in human behavior, there is still much to learn.
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Decision Science News
| June 8, 2015
Elke Weber recently spoke about climate change at the Penn Program on Regulation's Risk Regulation Series. Weber described climate change as the "perfect storm" action problem where intial costs are painful but long-term consequences are beneficial. She empahsizes that there is no one solution: we need action on all fronts. She promotes the collboration of diverse fields to combat and to further awareness of climate change.
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Decision Science News
| May 5, 2015
The Guardian has a panel of experts share what they think are the best ways to promote positive action for climate change. Suggestions include connecting the dots, highlighting the economic benefits, and forgetting about the pictures of polar bears. CDS' own Elke Weber recommends that we don't forget that small efforts add up. We need to communicate solutions that are credible and effective that will cumulatively scale up in the long run.
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Decision Science News
| April 22, 2015
Ruth Greenspan Ball and Elke U. Weber, in honor of Earth Day, discuss how people need to think of climate change in both big and small ways. Fighting climate change goes beyond just global and national changes, it needs to be a part of our everyday lives. Researchers estimate that 40% of electric use and carbon emissions in the United States come from individual and household use. The ideas for small scale change are here, such as keycards that activate electricity in hotel rooms. The continued pursuit and activation of these ideas is key.
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Decision Science News
| March 31, 2015
At the Second Annual Climate Change Conference at Loyola University Chicago, researchers discussed why it is so difficult to motivate people to undertake climate-friendly behavior changes. Elke Weber, Columbia Business School, discussed the psychological barriers we face when trying to be climate-friendly. These include that our decisions are often guided by emotion, rules and habits, and they often reflect a bias for the status quo.
Topics: Business Economics and Public Policy, Leadership, Strategy | Read Article
Decision Science News
| March 25, 2015
Older adults have very different money priorities than younger members of their families. Rather than focusing on accruing wealth, older adults should strive to spend less and to plan their estate. A large concern when it comes to these activities is cognitive decline. Eric Johnson, Columbia Business School, says that while cognitive challenges are present in older age, years of collected wisdom can counteract this decline.
Topics: Business Economics and Public Policy, Healthcare | Read Article
Decision Science News
| February 23, 2015
In October 2013, the Affordable Care Act introduced a new insurance market — state and federal exchanges where people can purchase health insurance for themselves or their families. Although the rollout of the exchanges was disastrous, around-the-clock efforts fixed many of the biggest technical problems, and nearly 7 million people purchased insurance in the new market.
Topics: Healthcare | Read Article
Decision Science News
| January 26, 2015
Practice and experience that come with age may offset much of the adverse impact from slipping brainpower, say Read Article
Decision Science News
| January 23, 2015
One popular paradigm for thinking about how to deal with the problem of global warming is to divide the problem into “wedges.” Thus, one wedge would be to increase solar power.
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