Incentivology: The Forces That Explain Tremendous Success and Spectacular Failure
Jason Murphy
Jun 2019 · Hardie Grant Publishing
3.5star
2 reviewsreport
Ebook
272
Pages
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About this ebook
Rewards. Punishments. Prices. The Nobel Prize. Candy Crush. Incentives take more forms than you might expect and they can be hard to spot, but they shape our lives in ways that we rarely examine.
Some incentives are obvious, like for example, publicly committing to doing something you dislike in order to motivate you to do something difficult, like lose weight. But, many of the most powerful incentives are accidental, and invisible even to those who designed them. Some are tame – and some are most definitely not. Whether it’s bounties for criminals or Instagrammable meals, training your dog or saving the planet, incentives regularly backfire, go missing, mutate and evolve. Without oversight, their unintended consequences can have very global effects. In Incentivology, economist Jason Murphy uncovers the huge incentive systems we take for granted and turns them inside out. In lively, entertaining prose he explores the mechanisms behind many spectacular failures and successes in our history, culture and everyday lives, and shows us how to use (or lose) incentives in our world at large.
Some incentives are obvious, like for example, publicly committing to doing something you dislike in order to motivate you to do something difficult, like lose weight. But, many of the most powerful incentives are accidental, and invisible even to those who designed them. Some are tame – and some are most definitely not. Whether it’s bounties for criminals or Instagrammable meals, training your dog or saving the planet, incentives regularly backfire, go missing, mutate and evolve. Without oversight, their unintended consequences can have very global effects. In Incentivology, economist Jason Murphy uncovers the huge incentive systems we take for granted and turns them inside out. In lively, entertaining prose he explores the mechanisms behind many spectacular failures and successes in our history, culture and everyday lives, and shows us how to use (or lose) incentives in our world at large.
Ratings and reviews
3.5
2 reviews
Francisco Trejo
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March 16, 2020
El libro me fascinó al principio pero nomás pasa al capítulo 2 y se desvía mucho del tema
Kim Grey
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July 25, 2019
Great read.
About the author
Jason Murphy is an economist who has worked at the Australian Treasury, the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Nauru, and the Australian Financial Review. He writes regularly for News.com.au and Crikey, blogs at thomasthethinkengine.com and has a passion for bringing economics into the everyday world.
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