“The Economic Way of Thinking in a Pandemic”, 2024-09-21 (; similar):
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic way of thinking was extraordinarily useful, leading to a quick consensus among economists of widely differing political persuasions on many issues of pandemic policy. Yet speaking to politicians, bureaucrats, and the public revealed many ways in which the economic way of thinking was foreign and sometimes uncomfortable to non-economists, albeit often useful.
Instructors can use pandemic policy to engage students on topics like incentives, trade-offs, utilitarianism, Bayesian reasoning, and overcoming cognitive biases.
[Keywords: Bayesianism, economic way of thinking, omission-commission fallacy, pandemic, status-quo bias, utilitarianism]
See Also:
Lay economic reasoning: An integrative review and call to action
Win-win denial: The psychological underpinnings of zero-sum thinking
The delusive economy: how information and affect color perceptions of national economic performance
Behavioral scientists and laypeople misestimate societal effects of COVID-19
Expert opinions and negative externalities do not decrease support for anti-price gouging policies
Possible takeaways from the coronavirus pandemic for slow AI takeoff