Economics, as it is traditionally taught, is preoccupied with analyzing processes and institutions that shape modern, industrialized nations. By contrast, scant attention is given to the economic decisions of the world’s poor, presumably because their choices seem so constrained that there simply isn’t much worth studying. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, recipients of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, beg to differ.

“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best.” Ernest Hemingway Thru-hiking — the idea of completing a long-distance hiking trail in one go — has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially on popular routes such as the Pacific Crest Trail or the…

Many if not most of the articles I publish here are book reviews, and so sometimes people congratulate me on my “reading stamina” when I share them with my network. …

New year, new batch of reviews! 13 books from P like psychology to P like population genetics. Let’s go: 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, Scott Lilienfeld, Steven Lynn, John Ruscio & Barry Beyerstein The main issue I have with the book is that it takes 50 theories about human psychology — some batshit crazy, some plausible and some, as far as I can tell…

Celebrating half a decade of reviews. — The final installment for this year is in, which means it’s time for a little retrospective. I originally started this series five years ago, and even though the shape of it has undergone some minor transformations, I’ve stayed true to the original idea: Instead of offering concise summaries (which you…

On the race of a lifetime. From the southern slopes of the Jungfrau in the heart of the Bernese Oberland, at a junction known as the Konkordiaplatz emerges the Aletsch glacier. Standing at a length of 20 kilometers and a surface of nearly 80 square kilometers, it is Europe’s largest…

Psychology, polarization and an unusual amount of fiction Against Empathy, Paul Bloom Unsurprisingly, the title is pure marketing, and the actual content rather tame by comparison. Some of his quibbles are definitional, but I read him mostly as saying that empathy is a rather specialized device from our emotional toolbox, rather than a versatile…

Featuring data science, post-Soviet Russia, altruism and bureaucrats. — The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch The subtitle is “Explanations that transform the world” and honestly, how much more Kurzweilian could you name your book? Fortunately for the reader, the thesis is solid than the title may suggests and goes something like this: Infinity seems like a ridiculous concept when applied outside of mathematics (and even…

Now delivered on a quarterly basis! — By now, most readers of this publication should have seen variations of the theme, so no need for lengthy introductions. The main change for this year is that I’ve decided to release reviews in smaller batches instead of making you wait until the end of the year for one or…