Behavioral Game Theory

Over christmas I had chance to read the book Running with The Kenyans by Adharanand Finn. In short the book is about a British guy's experience of immersing himself for six months in the Kenyan running culture. A recurring theme throughout the book is the question of why Kenyan's have come to dominate long distance running. The answer clearly depends on a number of things like high altitude, running to school etc. But the main thing seems to be a culture of running. Kenyans run because that is what Kenyans do. So, what has that got to do with economics?        There can be no doubt that Kenyan athletes take running very seriously. In other words they put in hours and hours of training (and perhaps more importantly put in hours and hours of dedicated rest). An economist would think of this as human capital formation. All the hours of dedication to running are about the person improving their ability to run fast so that he or she can eventually win some r...

We've not long got back from a skiing holiday in the Swiss Alps. And one thing that caught my attention (particular as our trip coincided with Michael Schumacher's accident) was that everyone skiing was wearing a helmet. When I was learning to ski 25 years ago nobody wore a helmet. So, how did society go from 0% wearing a helmet to 100% wearing one?       The obvious answers if you read the economic textbook would be that: (i) ski helmets have got cheaper, or (ii) ski helmets have become better - lighter, safer etc., or (iii) skiers are better informed about the benefits of wearing a helmet. Personally, I think we can safely ignore all three of these as the main causal factor. To argue the point I would compare skiing with cycling and rock climbing. Over the timespan I'm looking at here I would guess that helmet usage in cycling and rock climbing has stayed pretty much constant - and nearer to 50% than 0 or 100%. Yet skiing helmets are essentially somewhere in-between ...