Tag Archives: reading

BOOK LIST

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DONE LIST: 2018
2. MANAGING WITH POWER: POLITICS AND INFLUENCE IN ORGANIZATIONS, JEFFREY PFEFFER, 2.01-2.21, 9/10.
1. 12 RULES FOR LIFE, JORDAN B. PETERSON, 1.23-29, 7/10.
3. THE REETORIC OF ECONOMICS, DEIRDRE N. MCCLOSKEY. 6.03-7.06. 8/10.
4. IF YOU’RE SO SMART: THE NARRATIVE OF ECONOMIC EXPERTISE, DONALD N. MCCLOSKEY, 7.07-7.16, 7/10.

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TODO LIST: 2017
Personnel Economics in Practice, Lazear
Economics for the Common Good
Economics of strategy, Besanko
The Economic Nature of the Firm, Kroszner, Ptterman
Choices, Values, and Frames, by Kahneman, Daniel and Tversky
The Theory of Industrial Organization, Tirole
Thinking, fast and slow
Misbehaving: the making of behaviorial economics
The Worldly Philosophers
The Mathematical Experience

Enlightenment Now, by Steven Pinker
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker
Language Instinct, Pinker

An Unified theory of psychology
The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene;
The structure of action (1967)

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Month 4: 263

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work:
    finish TYM (1 week), INV (1 week), and MRF (2 weeks);
    push MHS, TQ2, AO;
    maybe start DSR;
learn:
    finish Luenberger, optimization by vector space methods;
    finish keys to great writing;
    finish the willpower instinct;
    read economics rules;
social:
    plan the party on 1.31;
    online blogging;
    attend econ seminars;
    go to univ library;
    try basketball pickup, or another community activity;   
deco:
    buy furniture, plants, and paintings;

IMG_0181

[Beijing, China, 10/27/2014]

Book: scarcity

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Insightful about human behavior. it starts strong, but second half reads flat and chaotic.

The main concepts are scarcity, bandwidth, focus, and tunneling. The main point is, scarcity leads to both focus and tunneling. Focus improves productivity, but tunneling reduces performance. Hence, the poor is likely to be trapped in poverty because scarcity reduces bandwidth and hence productivity; they are more vulnerable to random shocks.

Small but frequent deadlines are more effective than a grand one.

Essentially, this is a layman version of the constrained optimization: the scarcity is imposed by the constraints. The more constrained you are, the worse the performance.

\max_{x \in X} f(x)

Here the scarcity is captured by X.

The insight that slack can improve productivity can be expressed by:

If X_1 \subset X_2, then \max_{X_1} f \le \max_{X_2} f.

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