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Homo Economicus In Richard Thaler's Freakonomics Radio

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“Let’s undertake a mission, which is to make you, Greg Rosalsky, more– better off as you put it, by becoming more like homo economicus, to try and live your life a little bit more the way that economists would describe the way someone should live their lives.” Homo economicus is the figurative human being characterized by the endless capability to make rational decisions. Few economic models have conventionally depend on the belief that humans are rational and will try to take full advantage of their utility for both monetary and non-monetary advantages. In this episode, Freakonomics Radio producer Greg Rosalsky boards a long and tortuous journey to live his life like homo economicus. Is this even possible? If so, is it desirable? Even if it’s …show more content…

Richard Thaler is the co-author of the landmark 2008 book Nudge; and Thaler has just published a new book called Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics. In the podcast, Thaler advises Rosalsky on how to get a seat on the subway, how to play the dating market, and whether to pay for public goods like free music in the subway. Rosalsky also ponders whether voting is a rational …show more content…

In an effort to become homo economicus, it seemed like the best thing to do was for Rosalsky to offer to pay for their seats. Because seats are not usually thought of as for sale, the idea to buy and sell seats is out of the social norms. But if everyone acted like an economist, there would be a supply and demand market for the sale of subway seats. The people on the subway have a short-term property right to their seats because they got there first. If people truly acted the way economist say, they would sell if the money they were offered was greater than the utility of sitting value. Instead, Rosalsky determined through his experiment that people tend not to give up their seat unless for an elderly or pregnant person and not usually for monetary

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