Notes and commentary

Why ‘free’ is not just a low price. It changes how we decide, sometimes against our own interest.

14 July 2026

The Tyranny of the Default

The option you never chose is often the one you end up with. Defaults quietly shape huge decisions.

9 July 2026

Why Your Apps Autoplay the Next Episode

The attention economy is built on removing tiny frictions and adding them where it wants you to stay.

4 July 2026

The benchmark before bias

1 min

Why behavioural economics starts with rational choice rather than replacing it.

2 July 2026

Why 99% Does Not Feel Like 100%: The Certainty Effect

A sure thing feels special, and the jump from 99% to 100% feels larger than the jump from 60% to 61%. Here is why, and what it means for decisions.

2 July 2026

Why 19,998 Feels Cheaper Than 20,000

A tiny change in a number can produce a large change in how it feels. Blame the left-most digit.

30 June 2026

What a discrete choice experiment actually measures

Research methods and reproducibility

A plain guide to what a DCE can tell you, and what it cannot.

28 June 2026

Why People Buy Both Insurance and Lottery Tickets

The same person often buys insurance and a lottery ticket. Probability weighting explains how both can be attractive at once.

25 June 2026

Averages hide the people who matter

Why preference heterogeneity, not the average, is often the real finding.

21 June 2026

Loss Aversion in Health, Pricing, and Public Policy

Losses tend to loom larger than equivalent gains. That simple asymmetry reshapes how people value treatments, prices, and policies.

18 June 2026

What eye tracking reveals about how we choose

Attention and eye tracking

Using eye tracking to see how people read a choice task, and why it matters.

14 June 2026

Risk versus Ambiguity: Why Unknown Probabilities Change Decisions

Risk is when the odds are known. Ambiguity is when they are not. People treat the two very differently, and it matters for new health technologies.

11 June 2026

Does feedback help people make better choices?

Research methods and reproducibility

Giving respondents feedback in a preference task can guide them, or mislead them.

7 June 2026

The Allais Paradox and What It Reveals about Rational Choice

Research methods and reproducibility

A famous pair of choices that most people get ‘wrong’ by the standard model. The Allais paradox shows why the independence axiom is hard to keep.

4 June 2026

What preference research adds to the vaccine mandate debate

Mandates are usually argued in absolutes. Preference research shows the trade-offs.

31 May 2026

The Ellsberg Paradox, Ambiguity Aversion, and New Health Technologies

People prefer a bet with known odds to an equivalent bet with unknown odds. The Ellsberg paradox shows why, and why it matters for new technologies.

28 May 2026

Why I build decision tools