Behavioral Economics For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/behavioraleconomics to view this books’ cheat sheet.

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Introducing Behavioral Economics: The Science of Making Real-World Choices

Part II: Understanding Choice

Part III: Growing the Economic Pie: The Economic Importance of Ethics, Well-Being, and Culture

Part IV: When Bubbles and Busts and Inefficiencies Are Possible: Some Behavioral Insights into the Strange World of Economic Reality

Part V: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Introducing Behavioral Economics: The Science of Making Real-World Choices

Chapter 1: Decoding Behavioral Economics

Making Wise Assumptions

Why reality matters

Why incentives matter — even in behavioral economics

Making Sense of Choice

Maximizing versus satisficing

The effect of emotions

The avoidance of loss

How options are framed

Paternalism versus free choice

The role of social context in decision making

Relative positioning

Growing the Economic Pie

Deciphering Bubbles and Busts

Inefficient markets and investment behavior

Emotions, intuition, animal spirits, and business cycles

Understanding Happiness: Money Isn’t Everything

Chapter 2: Getting Real about Assumptions

Defining an Economic Model

Explaining economic phenomena

Making simplifying assumptions

Discovering the irrelevance of facts ...