In the neoclassical economic model, agents are assumed to act in pursuit of maximum utility—to know their preferences and some of the constraints they face—and to effectively satisfy their economic needs by means of market exchanges. In contrast, behavioral economists claim that individual judgments tend to be cognitively conditioned by biases such as overconfidence, lack of self-control, framing and loss aversion, and that consequently neoclassical theory fails to predict actual economic behavior in the market. They propose instead that people should be oriented by experts so that they choose what some economists consider to be the right decision. In the field of public policy, for example, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein1 defend the stance of steering individuals into making choices that benefit their own long-term self-interest. People would retain the possibility of declining (opting out of) any state-mandated directive. Under such an arrangement, they write, “the goal should be to avoid arbitrary and harmful random effects and to produce a situation that tends to promote the well-being of people properly defined” (179, emphasis added). The crucial question, of course, is who defines the well-being of people, and on what grounds. Classical liberals think that it must be a matter of free individual choices, while behavioral economists attribute the task to experts and public planners who allegedly know better what an objective measure of well-being is and how to achieve it. We will not pursue the comparison between the two approaches extensively. The purpose here is only to point out some methodological and normative issues with behavioral economics, and their implications for public policy design, by looking at a text by one of its founders: Richard Thaler. Thaler’s presidential address2 given at the American Economic Association in 2016 synthetizes his perspective on behavioral economics. There are several methodological aspects in the text that merit attention, namely, the reconstruction of neoclassical thought, the consideration of costs, the analysis of how markets work, and the interplay between the descriptive and normative approaches. The reconstruction of neoclassical thought: cognition In the neoclassical model of Homo Economicus, Thaler includes the following assumptions: well-defined preferences, unbiased beliefs and expectations, and “infinite cognitive abilities” and “infinite willpower” to make “optimal choices” (1578), and adds that in neoclassical theories agents act as if they understood the model (1593). He considers that model to be highly implausible given that optimization is a difficult task (1579). Following Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s experiments, he holds that “humans make judgments that are systematically biased” (1581) and that markets exacerbate those biases. For that reason, he endorses a theory of engineering, that is, a “set of practical enhancements” to better predict behavior and to correct such biases (1586, 1592). Thaler partially misconstrues the cognitive premises of neoclassical authors. In The Economic Approach to Human Behavior, Gary Becker writes that “the economic approach does not assume that all participants in any market necessarily have complete information [nor that] decisions units are necessarily conscious of their efforts to maximize” (6-7). That said, participants do have an optimal amount of information to engage in market transactions on the basis of a calculus of utility, and they seek to minimize costs “that may not be easily ‘seen’ by outside observers” (Ibid. 14, 112). Thus, cognition is not perfect nor infinite but it is strong enough to allow market actors to find ways to choose the proper means to achieve competing ends. “Thaler seems to believe that either we are perfect rational maximizers or we are inclined to make cognitively-biased decisions mostly leading to undesired economic choices. But dichotomous approaches may be unfit logical instruments to explain reality.” Thaler seems to believe that either we are perfect rational maximizers or we are inclined to make cognitively-biased decisions mostly leading to undesired economic choices. But dichotomous approaches may be unfit logical instruments to explain reality. A model based on the premises of incomplete information, limited rationality, and unarticulated ways of doing economic calculations seems more adjusted to explain why free markets have worked better than all the engineering alternatives. There has been a steady global growth in wealth in the past 250 years, as pointed out by Deirdre McCloskey3. The history of wealth shows that rationality in free markets—albeit a limited, fragile, and tacit rationality—has prevailed over cognitive biases and has led thousands of millions of people to more prosperous and fulfilling standards of life. The consideration of costs Thaler also addresses neoclassical views on costs. He casts doubts about firms’ ability to optimally calculate marginal costs and revenues (1580); he relates the notion of opportunity cost to rational choice models only (1584), and he writes that “unless the transaction costs can be measured the use of the concept is undisciplined” (1594). In other words, in his view firms seem to be quite unintelligent when it comes to calculating costs; the appeal to opportunity costs is limited to a single economic model, and the notion of transaction costs comes across as almost metaphysical. Such an understanding of costs is derived from his reconstruction of neoclassical cognitive premises. He infers that, because there is no such thing as perfect rationality, there can be no adequate calculation of costs. However, Thaler does not offer his own account of the calculation of costs in order to justify the possibility of engineering” individual economic decisions. Other perspectives on costs can help us assess that possibility. As James M. Buchanan points out in Cost and Choice4, costs represent the “anticipated utility loss upon the sacrifice of a rejected alternative” (p.41). Costs are subjectively assessed by the agents involved in the particular economic exchanges, on the basis of information only they can possess and of their own values (Ibid. 25,44,76). This subjective approach to costs refutes the idea of a successful “engineering” of any individual decision when it comes to a cost-benefit calculus. Along similar lines, Rosolino Candela points out that transaction costs are the costs of engaging in economic calculation,5 a crucial element to understanding how the market economy works. From this perspective, it seems equivocal to limit the concept of transaction costs to a unique and correct standard of measure, as Thaler suggests, since the costs of participating in market transactions can only be estimated by individual agents based on a diversity of factors that can never be detected by the engineers. Last, and perhaps most importantly, Buchanan6 also calls attention to the concept of unintended consequences as the most distinctive characteristic of the social scientist (57). Applied to the subject under analysis, the unintended costs of economic choices must also be taken into account when proposing to regulate, steer, or engineer the economy. Economic analysis cannot be impervious to costs. Yet Thaler overlooks these considerations. Take, for example, his proposal, “Save More Tomorrow,” which defends workers’ mandatory enrollment in retirement plans and the option to increase the proportion of pension contributions as their salaries rise (1596). Several questions arise in the face of such a proposal. Why induce people to save more and not buy more property or invest in business ventures? Who should estimate the opportunity costs and the unintended consequences of each decision? The answers to these questions require an overall cost-benefit analysis that can only be done by market agents. But Thaler assumes that higher levels of savings are better than investment alternatives. He does not weigh the transaction costs, opportunity costs, and unintended or unanticipated consequences associated with the Save More Tomorrow proposal. How markets work The core idea of behavioral economics is that individual economic choices in markets tend to fail in securing desired ends due to a number of cognitive biases. With regard to consumers, Thaler finds that learning is complex and people err at making important decisions (such as saving for retirement). Therefore, he infers, people need steering by experts and public planners. With regard to producers, Thaler holds that markets exploit generalized cognitive biases in order for firms to increase profits (1585). To illustrate this point, he examines the case of the 2008 financial crisis and posits that housing markets exacerbated behavioral biases and price bubbles created a global recession. He mentions that prior to the crisis the “lending requirements were unusually lax” and that borrowers were fooled by lenders (1586-89). However, Thaler does not take into consideration the political and financial mechanisms behind the crisis, fueled by the Federal Reserve’s cheap-credit monetary policy that led to a housing-building and lending bubble. Several scholars have pointed out that an active federal housing subsidy policy helped weaken the standards and encouraged a mortgage scheme based on high-risk loans. The federal backing sent signals to the financial executives, who assumed the government’s implicit guarantee if something went wrong, thereby encouraging irresponsible behavior and neglecting precautions and controls to prevent it from happening.7 In his analysis, Thaler overlooks the arguments and evidence that might refute his reading, which attributes the causes of the crisis to foolish people and unprincipled lenders only and omits any critical reference to government regulations and subsidies. This is a partial examination of the real causes and consequences of the crisis, perhaps due to a bias against markets. Consequently, it weakens the case that experts are supposedly less exposed to the type of biases ascribed to the rest of the people. Descriptive, predictive, and normative approaches A few behavioral economists8 invoke Adam Smith’s ideas on the sentiments and thoughts that drive people in social interactions. Thaler sees in Smith the father of empirical economics; he proposes to stop arguing about theoretical principles or predictive approaches and turn to evidence-based economics (1597). The analysis of his methodological stance requires that we revisit the relation of theory to empirical observation, and the work of Karl Popper9 may be useful for such a task. Popper finds that: 1) empirical observation alone is incomplete and subject to the dangers of misinterpretation if it is not guided by theories (which is “why induction doesn’t work” 41-42n8); 2) the rationality of science lies “solely in the critical approach—in an attitude which, of course, involves the critical use, among other arguments, of empirical evidence” (228-29), and 3) the theoretical social sciences should be mainly concerned with tracing “the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions” (342). Popper’s recommendations are useful for understanding some of the shortcomings of the behavioral economic methodology. First, the treatment of the 2008 crisis does not take into account all available factors and therefore shows an uncritical attitude that taints any observation with regard to the causes of the crisis, in particular, and to the dynamics of markets more generally. Second, as mentioned earlier, by skirting the consideration of the costs of economic engineering behavioral economics may be eluding a scientific responsibility as understood by Buchanan and Popper. Last, Thaler assumes there is a unique right measure for economic indicators (such as the level of individual savings for retirement), that experts know what that measure is, and that it is legitimate for the government to induce people to adopt it. The latter is a judgment of value implicitly slid in an approach that claims to be only descriptive, which suggests that evidence-based economics is guided by an implicit normative theory after all. From Method to Norms and Policy The analysis of Thaler’s proposal to steer individuals into making the right choices must take into consideration questions about its normative value and its policy recommendations. From the normative point of view, should the people be oriented by the government, or rather should they be left free to make individual economic decisions? According to Adam Smith, individual liberty, security, and justice should never be obstructed nor destroyed by governments (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 66410). This normative focus in Smith is highlighted by Ronald Coase in “Adam Smith’s View of Man”11: “It is because markets are thought to embody ideal justice, and not because they promote interests, that Smith relies on them” (57n70). Along similar lines, in Economic Enquiry and its Logic,12 Buchanan defends the Smithean policy position that seeks to shrink political intervention in the economy and widen the [individuals’] range for potential choice (15-16). From a classical liberal stance, the proper business of government is not to nudge or steer individuals but to protect their rights. If behavioral economics finds it acceptable to restrict the range of individual liberty for the sake of policy goals, despite its claims to the contrary, it is an anti-liberal normative theory. On the public policy front, some of the questions to address include the following: what design helps better mitigate the cognitive problems of the people, the experts, and the public planners? How are their cognitive biases different? What are the resulting costs of their decisions and who bears them? Behavioral economics presumes that politically-mandated solutions that deal with the consequences and biases of individual choices will be successful. But technocrats are also subject to overconfidence, miscalculation, preference for short-run results, errors in forecasting, and discretional decisions that they observe in the people. Behavioral economics tends to overlook these issues. Bryan Caplan13 points out that out of 67 articles in behavioral economics with policy recommendations, 65 fail to assess the cognitive ability of policymakers and the unintended consequences of the proposed policies. This is problematic, for policymakers and regulators may believe that they are exempt from cognitive biases, or that they can predict the magnitude of the impact of regulations. Several other authors warn against the experts’ cognitive biases. For Kurt Weyland,14 “even well-trained, highly competent specialists are compelled to apply cognitive heuristics—and to incur the corresponding risks of distortions and biases,” and Slavisa Tasic15 observes that “the possibility of regulatory error is not seriously considered in policy formulation, and the concept of unanticipated negative ramifications is largely absent from policy analysis” (429). See also Roger Koppl16 on the bounded rationality of experts (167-168). Conclusion: Back to Smith Behavioral economists such as Thaler think that experts and planners can know what an objective measure of economic well-being is and how to achieve it by means of public policies. However, they overestimate their cognitive capacities to do so, and they tend to ignore the negative costs of those policies and the responsibilities that go with them. Thus, they fail to consider all the cognitive and moral aspects associated with their policy prescriptions. Some behavioral economists (Thaler included) admire Adam Smith. The founder of modern economics sought to explain the dynamics of a complex reality, and he found in the system of natural liberty the best possible arrangement for the social order. He arrived at two conclusions worth highlighting here. First, “not only the prejudices of the publick, but what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of many individuals, irresistibly oppose [freedom of trade]” (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 471). Second, he preferred the man of public spirit, who acknowledges the people’s common prejudices and errors and yet hopes to correct them with patience and persuasion, to the man of the system, who intends to manage people as if they were inert pieces on a chessboard (The Theory of Moral Sentiments,17 233). For more on these topics, see “Behavioral Versus Free Market Economics,” by Leonidas Zelmanovitz. Library of Economics and Liberty, Jan. 2, 2023. Behavioral Economics, by Sendhil Mullainathan and Richard H. Thaler. Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. “Predictably Irrational or Predictably Rational?,” by Richard B. McKenzie. Library of Economics and Liberty, Jan. 4, 2010. Because Smith was more worried about the harmful actions of special interests and presumptuous bureaucrats than about the effects of people’s biases, he wrote in defense of a limited government and a free market economy. It seems that those behavioral economists who find a source of inspiration in Smith should look again at his recommendations. Footnotes [1] Thaler, Richard H. and Cass R. Sunstein. “Libertarian Paternalism.” The American Economic Review 93, no. 2 (May 2003): 175-179. [2] Thaler, Richard. Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2015. [3] Interview with Deirdre McCloskey. By Marian L. Tupy. Human Progress (November 4, 2022). [4] Buchanan, James M. Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in Economic Theory. Available online as Volume 6 of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan at https://www.econlib.org/library/Buchanan/buchCv6.html, Library of Economics and Liberty. [5] Candela, Rosolino. “Transaction Costs are the Costs of Engaging in Economic Calculation.” EconLog (June 3, 2020). [6] Buchanan, James M. The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Volume 17: Moral Science and Moral Order. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2001. [7] See the analysis by R. G. Holcombe and B. Powell (comp.), Housing America: Building Out of a Crisis, New York and London: Routledge, 2017 [2009], pp. 6-7; L. White, “Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Housing Finance: Why True Privatization Is Good Public Policy,” Policy Analysis, Cato Institute, No. 528, 2004, and Arnold King, “The 2008 Financial Crisis,” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. [8] Ashraf, Nava, Colin F. Camerer, and George Loewenstein. 2005. “Adam Smith, Behavioral Economist.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19 (3): 131-145. [9] Popper, Karl. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Routledge Classics, 2002. [10] Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume I. Edited by R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1982. Available online at https://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html, Library of Economics and Liberty. [11] Coase, R. H. “Adam Smith’s View of Man.” The University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, Selected Papers No. 50. [12] Buchanan, James M. The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Volume 12: Economic Inquiry and Its Logic. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2000. [13] Caplan, Bryan. “Biased Behavioral Econ.” EconLog (April 14, 2016). [14] Weyland, Kurt. Bounded Rationality and Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. [15] Tasic, Slavisa. “The Illusion of Regulatory Competence.” Critical Review, 21:4, 423-436. [16] Koppl, R. (2018). “Expert Failure.” In Expert Failure (Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society, p. i). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [17] Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics; Liberty Fund (Glasgow Edition), 1982. Available online at https://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS.html, Library of Economics and Liberty. *Alejandra Salinas is a Professor at UNTREF and UCA in Buenos Aires, whose focus is on contemporary political philosophy, comparative political theory, social theory, democratic institutions and literature and politics. As an Amazon Associate, Econlib earns from qualifying purchases. (0 COMMENTS)

“Liberty and responsibility,” according to F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty, “are inseparable. A free society will not function or maintain itself unless its members regard it as right that each individual occupy the position that results from his action and accept it as due to his own action” (1960, p. 71). The critical lynchpin that ties an individual’s freedom of action to the consequences of an individual’s action is the institution of private property. Without private property, neither liberty nor individual responsibility is possible. However, private property rights are not abstractions that are created independent of the particular circumstances of time and place. Rather, “when we recognize that transaction costs do exist,” according to Armen Alchian, “it seems clear that the partitioned rights will be reaggregated into more convenient clusters of rights” (1965, p. 820). As profound and important as these insights may be, they require frequent reiteration and illustrations to realize their importance, both in the classroom and for the general public. Yet, I would never have suspected that I could find such an interesting example to illustrate (1) how property rights tie consequences to one’s actions, (2) how property rights affect relative pricing, and (3) how transaction costs affect the allocation of property rights in pricing goods and services, from none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Among those of us who grew up watching Conan the Barbarian, The Terminator, Commando, Predator, True Lies, Eraser (the list can go on), Arnold Schwarzenegger is among the most iconic action stars of all time. However, one of my favorite Schwarzenegger films (co-starring Danny DeVito) is his 1988 blockbuster Twins. The relevance of that film for my point here comes not from the movie itself, but in an interview held by Graham Bensinger with Schwarzenegger,1 in which Schwarzenegger recounts the deals he had to make with the studio in order to be cast for the film. The story of Schwarzenegger being cast for Twins, in so many ways, illustrates the three points I’ve outlined above. Although the director Ivan Reitman had wanted to work on a project with Schwarzenegger and to cast him in a comedy, the studio was highly reluctant to take the risk of Schwarzenegger starring in a comedy given his status as an action star. Stated in economic terms, over the course of the previous decade, Schwarzenegger had accumulated a valuable stock of asset-specific human capital as an action star, and the transaction costs of transferring such capital toward the production of another consumer service (in this case filming a comedy) seemed prohibitively high. In effect, there was a problem due to the high transaction costs of defining property rights between Schwarzenegger and the studio, specifically regarding the costs “of obtaining the information necessary to enter into and complete bargaining negotiations” (Kirzner, 1973, p. 227). Who would make the final choice about casting? Who would bear responsibility if the movie turned out to be a box-office bomb? Could Schwarzenegger reallocate his human capital as an actor toward producing a comedy? And, how would the contract be structured, between Schwarzenegger and the studio, to determine freedom of choice in casting, responsibility over the consequences of the film, and therefore residual payment for eventual profits or losses? Fundamentally, all of these questions illustrate that property rights pertain to defining a set of social relations, or defining rights over action (not defining rights over an object) regarding the expected ability to exercise choices over a good or service, including one’s own human or physical capital (see Furubotn and Pejovich 1972). A clue to answer these questions can be found in Yoram Barzel’s Economic Analysis of Property Rights, in which he states the following: “The allocation of variability which maximizes the contractor’s wealth is the one wherein the ability of a contractor to affect the value of the mean outcome of the transaction is positively related to the share of variability he or she will assume” ([1989] 1997, p. 149).” Therefore, “if the party that will be more inclined to affect the outcome by varying the level of an attribute is put in control of that attribute, thereby becoming the residual claimant of its variability, losses will be minimized” ([1989] 1997, pp. 47-48). The unspecified “attribute” in this case that could vary the outcome of the film (in terms of its profitability), of which Schwarzenegger had particular knowledge (but the studio was unaware of) was his comedic ability. As he recounts in the interview, Schwarzenegger was so convinced of his comedic talent that he made an historic deal: he took no payment for his labor services as an actor in terms of a salary, thereby minimizing potential losses to the studio. Instead, he structured his contract with the studio in a manner that would assign him residual claimancy to any eventual profits. In effect, the uncertainty over the film’s success led Schwarzenegger to literally “take ownership of the situation” (to use an old phrase). Ownership in this case was defined not by a right to an object, but in the appropriate sense in which property rights are understood, namely as a social relationship regarding who has the right to exercise choice and who bears the responsibility for such a choice. In effect, the presence of transaction costs, which could have otherwise prohibited a deal between Schwarzenegger and the movie studio, become an entrepreneurial profit opportunity that was monetized by Schwarzenegger by realizing an opportunity to restructure the allocation of property rights in a manner that was mutually beneficial not only between Schwarzenegger and the studio, but also director Ivan Reitman and co-star Danny DeVito. “To be both free and responsible, therefore, requires knowledge that is context-specific to private property rights.” More importantly, the lesson illustrated here has implications for understanding productive specialization under the division of labor. There is no inherently “exploitative” basis that predetermines the owner-laborer relationship, and therefore the structure of property rights. Rather, who is an “owner” and who is a “laborer” is a consequence of the manner in which property rights are structured. Rather than Schwarzenegger selling labor services to the studio, in which case the studio is the “owner” of the film, he instead became the “owner” by “selling” his property right to a salary from the studio for a share of potential profits (or potential losses) in the film. To be both free and responsible, therefore, requires knowledge that is context-specific to private property rights. In order to know whether an individual is responsible for an outcome (in this case attributing the success of Twins to Schwarzenegger), we must first know that he or she was free to exercise the choice that resulted in that outcome. For more on these topics, see “Transaction Costs are the Costs of Engaging in Economic Calculation,” by Rosolino Candela. Library of Economics and Liberty, Jun. 3, 2020. Property Rights, by Armen Alchian. Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. “How Property Rights Solve Problems,” by David R. Henderson. Library of Economics and Liberty, Apr. 2, 2012. Property rights are the institutional lynchpin in a free society that creates such context-specific knowledge, which is essential in order for individuals to learn and harness the potential of their creative powers through productive specialization under the division of labor. The point here is not that property rights were necessary for Schwarzenegger to be a comedic actor, but that property rights were necessary to learn if Schwarzenegger could become a successful comedic actor on the big screen. If he were not free to renegotiate property rights with the studio and put “skin in the game” in the manner he did, it would have been less likely (or perhaps taken longer) for both him and the movie industry to learn if he had what it takes. The realization of an extensive division of labor, one that facilitates wide-scale exchange, ultimately implies that individuals must also be free to divide and reshuffle property rights in a manner consistent with their particularized knowledge of time and place. Interestingly enough, that’s something that we can all learn from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s experience! References Alchian, Armen A. 1965. “Some Economics of Property Rights.” Il Politico 30 (4): 816-829. Barzel, Yoram. ([1989] 1997). Economic Analysis of Property Rights, 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press. Furubotn, Eirik G., and Svetozar Pejovich. (1972). “Property rights and Economic Theory: A Survey of Recent Literature.” Journal of Economic Literature 10(4): 1137-1162. Hayek, F.A. (1960). The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kirzner, Israel M. (1973). Competition and Entrepreneurship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Footnotes [1] Bensinger, Graham. Interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. YouTube (September 14, 2016). * Rosolino Candela is a Senior Fellow in the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, and Program Director of Academic and Student Programs at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. As an Amazon Associate, Econlib earns from qualifying purchases. (0 COMMENTS)

If I have to, I can do anything I am strong I am invincible I am woman —Helen Reddy, “I Am Woman” Helen Reddy’s 1971 anthem captured the spirit of feminism in that era. The mood was optimistic, proud, and spirited. “Nothing can stop me,” the song seemed to say. Once doors were open to women, they would charge through and never look back. Today, the mood of feminists seems much darker. On college campuses, some seethe with resentment. They look to university administrators to fend off “toxic masculinity” and “rape culture.” They allege that free speech causes harm. They insist that schools ban words and speakers. They want “safe spaces.” It seems as though “I am strong, I am invincible” has been replaced by “I am anxious, I am vulnerable.” Joyce Benenson’s Warriors and Worriers,1 published in 2014, might explain today’s campus culture as the result of women reverting to their natural behavior, even as they have become the majority at many colleges and universities. Benenson writes that, … human males are programmed to develop traits that are associated with becoming a warrior, and that human females are programmed to develop characteristics that are related to becoming a worrier. (p. 13) I would suggest that higher education, once dominated by men, used to cater to men’s warrior nature. Today, with female students the majority, colleges and universities cater much more to women’s worrier culture. In her book, Benenson presents extensive empirical evidence for general differences in behavior and temperament between human males and females. These are differences that she and others have found in infants, toddlers, children, and adolescence. They are found in primitive cultures as well as in modern Western cultures. They are similar to traits found in other primates, including our chimpanzee relatives. In this review, I find it hard to do justice to the range of observations that Benenson makes about gender differences and the variety of sources for those observations. Taken as a whole, the empirical research that she cites seems solid. She grounds her explanation for male-female differences in evolutionary psychology. That approach always risks telling a “just-so” story, but I found it persuasive here. It is my idea to examine contemporary campus culture in terms of her warrior/worrier framework, and in doing so I certainly risk telling a “just-so” story as well. Benenson holds a Ph.D in psychology from Harvard University, and currently lectures there in the Department of Evolutionary Biology. As a developmental psychologist who has studied young boys and girls, she has found sex differences shared across many cultures, suggesting that these differences are not unique to western society. Over the past 30 years, I have come to believe that boys and girls differ in some of their basic interests and accordingly behave in different ways… boys enjoy physical fighting, find enemies captivating, and cannot beat competition for pure entertainment. Most important of all, boys want to engage in these behaviors with other boys. (p. vii) … When I see a behavior exhibited by virtually all members of one sex, but rarely by members of the other sex, it suggests that that behavior solves some basic problem for the sex that practices it. It’s not that the other sex could not learn to practice it, but they usually don’t without a lot of encouragement and learning. (p. viii) … I study children, because children allow me to observe human nature before society has exerted too much of an influence. The earlier a behavior appears in children, the more likely this behavior has some biological basis. What I have found is that girls and boys behave very differently beginning in infancy and early childhood, long before girls bear children and boys become the physically stronger sex. (p. 2) Benenson catalogues numerous differences in temperament and behavior between males and females. These include: • Boys are drawn to fight one another, and girls are not. • Boys are eager to play on their own, without the authority of teachers, and girls are not. • Girls enjoy play that involves acting out scenes of caring for a baby or a person in distress, and boys do not. • Women show higher levels of fear and anxiety and lower propensity to take risks than men do. • When evaluating same-sex individuals as potential friends or allies, men look for strength, courage, and useful skills. Women look for vulnerability and the absence of overt conflict. • Boys tend to have large groups of friends, with loose ties and shifting alliances. Girls tend to form tight cliques. • At recess, boys enjoy competitive team sports. They are concerned with formal rules and spend time negotiating such rules. I think of pickup softball games where there are only six players on a team. The rules might be “anything hit to right field is a foul ball,” or “batting team supplies pitcher, catcher, and first baseman” or some other ad hoc modification of normal baseball rules. • At recess, girls are less likely to choose competitive team sports, and they lose interest in team games relatively quickly. • Men value competition with prizes for those who demonstrate the most skill. Women prefer that no one stand out. It could be that some of these differences are small, with the 55th percentile for a female would align with the 45th percentile for a male. (If the trait were height, this would mean that a woman who is taller than 55 percent of other women would be as tall as a male who is taller than 45 percent of other males.) Or they could be large, meaning that the 95th percentile for a female would align with the 5th percentile for a male. Benenson never quantifies differences in this way, but the words she uses suggest that the differences that she observes are large. Benenson claims that what underlies these differences is that women pay more attention to their survival as individuals, while men pay more attention to survival in group competition. In terms of evolutionary psychology, a female needs to protect her own health in order to be able to bear children and to enable them to survive to adulthood. Benenson notes that until recently in human history, 40 percent of children died before the age of two. Increasing the chances of her baby’s survival had to be a major concern for women. Men always had the option of trying to impregnate many women, so that the death of one of his babies would be less significant. Once a baby has been created, the man need not remain healthy or even alive for that baby to survive. For men, the ability to pass their genes along is relatively less dependent on their individual survival. It is relatively more dependent on the ability of their group to out-compete other groups, especially in war. Behaviors, such as paying close attention to the state of one’s body, avoiding conflicts, finding a reliable mate while excluding competitors, and investing a lot in children likely have been specifically useful in keeping women alive. Behaviors that likely have been particularly useful in keeping men alive include physical fighting, selecting friends who are strong and skilled, and competing in groups. These patterns of sex differences appear across diverse cultures and are found even in young children. (p. 7) Benenson argues that men developed behaviors and temperaments to enable them to manage large coalitions in warfare. Women developed behaviors and temperaments to enable them to ensure the survival of their children. Many of the traits that accompany interest in war, such as enjoyment of fighting, pleasure in competition, preference for allies who are strong and competent, and undying loyalty to one’s own group, are useful in government, business, and other peacetime institutions. The traits that accompany caring for vulnerable individuals over the long haul, including staying healthy and avoiding risks, maintaining relationships with families and a mate, getting rid of interfering competitors, and investing in close kin and others who can help a mother raise her children, can be used in other helping professions as well. (p. 14) For a female, every other female is a potential competitor. Women eliminate a competitor by ganging up on the unwanted woman and excluding her. The excluded woman may not have violated a formal rule, but she seems threatening for some reason. For a male, every other male is a potential ally. You may fight a man one day, and the next day you may join with him to fight a common enemy. Men want to see non-cooperators punished, but subsequently the rule-breaker might be rehabilitated. Permanent exclusion would be a bad practice. “Reading Warriors and Worriers, it struck me that males would want to establish institutions in which competition reveals and rewards people for their skills. They would not be egalitarian.” Reading Warriors and Worriers, it struck me that males would want to establish institutions in which competition reveals and rewards people for their skills. They would not be egalitarian. If college were set up that way, ability and effort would play a big role in admission and grading. Females would seek a more egalitarian culture. In contests, Benenson writes, Girls don’t want any conflict, so they try to make everyone equal. They forget who won or lost. (p. 47) Men would be less likely to feel threatened, or “triggered,” by exposure to novel or troubling ideas. They would be less inclined to want to use exclusion (“canceling”) as an interpersonal strategy. Men would be relatively inclined to see conflict as something that can be negotiated. Women would want to see conflict eliminated, and they would appeal to administrators for protection. Benenson writes, When speaking to one another, young boys issue directives, command others, insult them, tell jokes at others’ expense, ignore what someone else just said, disagree with another’s point, call one another names, brag, tell stories highlighting their own accomplishments, curse, threaten others, use direct statements, and generally behave in a domineering fashion toward one another. (p. 45) On campus these days, such behaviors are looked down on as “toxic masculinity.” The contemporary emphasis on social justice seems to me to fit with Benenson’s remark that Men feel particularly good about themselves in domains such as athletic ability, appraisal of their personality, and overall satisfaction or happiness with themselves. Women in contrast rate their behavioral and moral conduct as more socially acceptable to their societies than men do. In other words, men just feel good about who they are, whereas women feel good about being moral. (p. 76) Overall, it seems to me that the culture of higher education has become increasingly feminized. This coincides with, and seems to me to be caused by, the increase in the proportion of female students. For more on these topics, see “The Boys Under the Bus,” by Arnold Kling. Library of Economics and Liberty, Dec. 5, 2022. From the shelf with curator Arnold Kling: Of Boys and Men with Kay Hymowitz and Bryan Caplan. YouTube, 1/11/23. Roy Baumeister on Gender Differences and Culture. EconTalk. “Sermons from Evolutionary Biologists,” by Arnold Kling. Library of Economics and Liberty, Nov. 1, 2021. Benenson writes, For thousands of years, males have constructed the rules that underlie religions, governments, economic systems, businesses, educational structures, and of course judicial courts and the military. Since ancient times, games with rules created by boys and men have predominated all over the world. (p. 78) As a more feminized culture spreads outward from college campuses, we may be engaged in an experiment to do without the institutional approaches that have persisted “for thousands of years.” Footnotes [1] Joyce F. Benenson, Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes, with Henry Markowits. Oxford University Press, 2014. *Arnold Kling has a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of several books, including Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care; Invisible Wealth: The Hidden Story of How Markets Work; Unchecked and Unbalanced: How the Discrepancy Between Knowledge and Power Caused the Financial Crisis and Threatens Democracy; and Specialization and Trade: A Re-introduction to Economics. He contributed to EconLog from January 2003 through August 2012. Read more of what Arnold Kling’s been reading. For more book reviews and articles by Arnold Kling, see the Archive. As an Amazon Associate, Econlib earns from qualifying purchases. (0 COMMENTS)

It is not rare that a top politician wants the good people to believe that a time of disaster preceded his rising to power and immediately followed his descent from the throne. How could the politician or his accomplices not see that this is a lie? Trump is not the only one to live in a lie, but he has special talents in that department: elect me and I’ll make America great and stop foreign collectivities from “taking advantage” of us collectively? In New Hampshire on January 28, he gave other examples (“‘I’m More Angry Now’: Trump Returns to Campaign Trail for 2024 Race,” Financial Times, January 28, 2023): We handed Biden a great economy, the fastest economic recovery ever recorded . . . but now families are being crushed. My 2020 Regulation review of that great economy provides an antidote. Trump also declared (“Trump Kicks Off 2024 Campaign Travel With New Hampshire, South Carolina Visits,” Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2023): The 2024 election is our one shot to save our country and we need a leader who is ready to do that on day one. What is perhaps more troubling is how many of the governed seem to believe in the political thaumaturge, whether it be Trump or somebody else. It is true that a politician can do a lot of damage in four years. But he can only do only limited good in that time frame. If he does  much good, it is likely to be only for a few people at the detriment of others. (0 COMMENTS)

Last week I wrote a critique at Defining Ideas, a Hoover Institution publication, of the views of Paul Krugman and Olivier Blanchard. Blanchard (pictured above) wrote a brief note defending himself and I wrote back. It went a few rounds. To recall, I had one critique of Krugman and two critiques of Blanchard. My critique of Krugman was that he was unwilling to admit that the “incomes policy” he seemed to favor was really a system of wage and price controls. My critique of Blanchard was that he talked about inflation without mentioning the growth of the money supply and that he got causation reversed: it doesn’t go from slow the economy to reduce inflation; instead it goes from reduce the growth rate of the money supply to reduce inflation and an effect of that is often a slowing of the economy. Here’s my back and forth with Blanchard: Blanchard: Incomes policies, Wikipedia definitions not withstanding, have nothing to do (at least in Europe) with wage and price controls.  They have to do with social partners trying to come to an agreement on how to deal with a particular issue. On monetary policy.  Yes, in general, it can be the source of the conflict, and thus of inflation.  In the particular case of the US today, I think fiscal policy is more to blame. Henderson: Dear Professor Blanchard, Thanks for your note. When I checked the web, what I found is that pretty much every incomes policy was designed to affect prices and wages, usually with controls. Of course, you know Europe better than I do. Your brief comment was a little too brief. What specifically were incomes policies in Europe? Also, you refer to “social partners.” I’m not sure what that means. Could you explain? Regarding inflation, do you think it would have been nearly as high as it has been if the Fed had not monetized much of the increase in debt? Best, David Blanchard: Don’t trust the web. 😊 Incomes policies in europe are tripartite negotiations between labor, business, and the government.  Most celebrated agreements are Wassenaar in the Netherlands, Moncloa in Spain.  And, for a long time, negotiations in the context of the French plan to assess the desirable path for the economy, the appropriate rate of growth of nominal wages and so on. (Agreement on the path of wages is not price-wage controls.  Distortions come when there are constraints on price adjustment) On monetary policy.  I believe that the effect of QE has been to decrease long rates by about 100 bps [DRH note: basis points], which is not negligible, but is far less, in terms of effects on aggregate demand than the various fiscal plans, especially the ARP [DRH note: Biden’s America Rescue Plan]. Debt has not been monetized.  The Fed has bought long bonds, and issued short maturity, interest paying, reserves.  This does not change total debt, and has a minimal effect of interest payments. Best. Henderson: Thanks for your quick reply. May I use this in a follow-on blog post? Best, David Blanchard: Sure.  Always happy to educate Hoover 😊 Henderson: Lol.   I will probably have more thoughts on his monetary policy point. I think he’s wrong but I’m not sure. Also note that the only transmission mechanism he conceives of from monetary policy to aggregate demand is through interest rates.. And notice that he didn’t reply to my claim that he mistakenly reversed the causation between slowing the economy and reducing inflation. Maybe I’ve educated MIT. I’m happy to do so.   (0 COMMENTS)

[ANNUAL LISTENER SURVEY: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EconTalk2022Fav. Vote for your 2022 favorites!] According to neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris, rationality is the key to safeguarding everything we cherish, and its only true enemy is dogmatic inflexibility. Harris speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the views that have made Harris famous, teasing out the often mind-blowing subtleties of his […] The post Sam Harris on Meditation, Mindfulness, and Morality appeared first on Econlib.

During the month of February, I’ll have the pleasure to coordinate a Virtual Reading Group on Bruno Leoni’s Freedom and the Law. I will write some rather impressionistic blog posts on the book, which I have read and read again over the years. Freedom and the Law is a short work, which emerged out of lectures that Leoni gave at Claremont College, thanks to Arthur Kemp, who was a good friend of Leoni. My American acquaintances are often surprised to know that the book, published in the United States in 1961, was translated and published in Italy only in 1995. Leoni was by no means unknown in his own country; he chaired the department of political science in Pavia, was a prominent lawyer, was friends with some of the most important scholars of his time, wrote regularly for the newspaper 24 Ore and was connected to the Liberal Party. But he died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 54, in 1967, and his memory was soon neglected. Leoni died right before the fateful year of 1968 and none of his students, including the most brilliant one, had either his worldview or his panache. Mario Stoppino, the one who had the strongest intellectual bond with him, published a collection of his essays in 1980, but that was for years the only publishing endeavor bearing Leoni’s name on the cover. After 1967 comes 1968 and though we tend to remember some of the most colorful and harmless offspring of the students’ movement, those years weren’t easy ones in Italy if you didn’t align with the left. Never forget that in Italy communist terrorism was a real thing: the Red Brigades succeeded in kidnapping and killing former prime minister Aldo Moro, in 1978. The publishing houses, in Italy, were typically courting the left (where most of the readers are, anyway) and academia began to falter too. So, Leoni was forgotten until, in a much quieter Italy, Raimondo Cubeddu, one of the true liberals in Italian universities, took a personal interest in Leoni and began to promote him with great vigour. In this regard, Italians of a classical liberal persuasion are greatly indebted to the Liberty Fund, which republished Freedom and the Law in 1991, thus giving a second life to the book (the original publisher was Van Nostrand/ the Volcker Fund). For libertarians joining our discussion group, it may be worth considering the relationship between Leoni and F. A. Hayek. Hayek expressed ins admiration in a beautiful obituary for Leoni. The picture of Leoni that comes out, vividly, is one of a tireless mind but also of a tireless man, who tried to put his tremendous energy to the service of the classical liberal cause. The Austrian school strongly influenced Leoni: he read and admired Mises, interacted extensively (also because of the Mont Pelerin Society) with Hayek and he even appreciated a young Murray Rothbard. In an essay he wrote on monopoly, he built on Rothbard’s Man, Economy and State. The issues of the relationship between Leoni and Hayek have been at the center of scholarly attention. The most recent contribution is by Antonio Masala, a foremost scholar and intellectual biographer of Leoni, who writes on the exchanges between the two thinkers and the journal Il Politico, which Leoni established and filled, in those years, with essays from his classical liberal friends. Masala’s paper is aptly published in Il Politico. Of Hayek’s scholars, the one who has paid more attention to Leoni is Jeremy Shearmur (see his Hayek and After). It is important to see that Leoni wanted to correct what he thought were Hayek’s misconceptions, on the nature of the law. He took issue with some of Hayek’s Cairo lectures and wanted to convince his friend that he needed to focus his own ideas better. As Todd Zywicki puts it, it was Leoni that introduced Hayek to the common law, which then became the heart of LLL. In so doing, of course, Leoni also introduced Hayek to his distinctive interpretation of the common law, rather than the modern realist-positivist view. Indeed, the novelty of the focus on the common law in LLL is striking: up until that time, the common law gets very little mention in either The Road to Serfdom or The Constitution of Liberty, both of which focus on the formalist Rechstaat notion of the rule of law. Then, the common law appears full-blown in LLL, with virtually no prior mention, and with a distinctive similarity to Leoni’s version. Libertarians joining our VRG may then easily find themselves at home and recognized in Freedom and the Law concepts and ideas that migrated in subsequent literature. Others may anyway discover a most creative and original legal theorist. (0 COMMENTS)

When I see examples of ChatGPT in action, I am reminded of the answers that college students provide on test questions. Yesterday, I finally got around to asking my first Chat question. I decided to test the famous AI with a question that students usually get wrong.  Chat got the question wrong. (And no, the “ceteris paribus” qualifier doesn’t help, at all.)  I then did a follow-up in the hope that clarifying the question would nudge Chat in the right direction. As you can see, on the second question Chat is hopelessly confused (if you’ll excuse me for anthropomorphizing a machine.).  Chat has some ideas about price and quantity demanded, price and quantity supplied, and the concept of equilibrium, but doesn’t know how to put them together in a coherent fashion.  In other words, Chat is a B student in a college economics course. This post is not about ChatGPT.  This new technology is actually quite impressive, and it seems likely that future versions will be even more impressive.  Rather this post is about the state of economics.  Suppose I claimed that “reasoning from a price change” is very widespread in the field of economics.  How could I justify this claim to a doubter?  I suppose I could dig up an example of reasoning from a price change in a news article, or even an academic journal.  But that would represent merely a single anecdote, not proof of a widespread problem. ChatGPT formulates answers by searching over a vast field of economics documents.  Thus its answers in some sense represent the consensus view of people who write books and articles on the subject of economics.  I’ve come to believe that most people don’t actually understand supply and demand, and the Chat response reinforces this view.  If I am correct, if Chat is like a mirror that reflects both the strengths and weaknesses of our understanding of economics, then I should be able to predict its failures.  And I believe I can do so.  I followed up my “reasoning from a price change” question with a set of questions aimed at exposing our weak understanding of the relationship between monetary policy and interest rates: See how easy it is to trick ChatGPT?  After 35 years of teaching thousands of students, I can predict how a typical student would answer the three questions above.  I know that their answers will not be entirely consistent.  And it does no good to claim there’s a grain of truth in each answer.  There is.  But ChatGPT doesn’t just give yes and no answers; it tries to explain the various possibilities.  Is this string of answers likely to be helpful to a college student?  Or would it further confuse them?  If Chat actually “understood” this stuff, it would give an answer pointing to the complexity of this issue. Again, this post is not about AI. Others have documented the fact that Chat often gives inadequate answers.  That’s not what interests me.  Rather I see Chat as a useful tool for diagnosing weaknesses in the field of economics. It allows us to peer into the collective brain of society. The questions that Chat gets wrong are the questions that most of our students get wrong.  Indeed, even many economists are too quick to equate falling interest rates with an expansionary monetary policy.  ChatGPT points to the areas where our educational system needs to do better.  PS.  You might argue that in my first monetary question I forced Chat to pick one direction of change.  But when the question is more open-ended, the answer is arguably even worse: PPS.  In the oil market example, one could argue that Chat is reacting to the fact that the oil market is dominated by supply shocks, making the claim “usually true”.  But it gives the same answer when confronted with a market dominated by demand shocks, where the claim is usually false: This gives us insight into how Chat thinks.  It does not search the time series data (as I would), looking for whether more new houses are sold during periods of high or low prices, rather it relies on theory (albeit a false understanding of the supply and demand theory.) (0 COMMENTS)

I’ve never been accused of being hesitant to nitpick (and if anyone ever did make that accusation, I’d nitpick it apart!), but sometimes what seems like a nitpick is actually an important point. Economists often make what seems like a nitpicky point to the non-economist. It usually takes a form like this: “Actually, Tesla’s recent price reductions won’t increase the demand for Tesla vehicles – it will increase the quantity demanded.” Or, we might say that the recent spike in egg prices doesn’t reduce demand for eggs, it only reduces the quantity of eggs demanded. (Insert obligatory “all else being equal” clause here, and please mentally carry it forward for the remainder of the post! It will save me a lot of keystrokes.) Increases or decreases in demand mean the demand curve has shifted right or left. The same is true for changes in supply. Increases or decreases in quantity demanded (or supplied) means moving up (or down) the curve, without shifting its position. We could also speak of the change in elasticity of supply and demand, which changes how steep the curves are, but for now we can ignore that complication. Let’s just stick with those two ideas – shifting the curves and moving along the curves. I’ve been told that a sign you’ve mastered learning a new language is when you experience and understand people speaking that language in your dreams. I wouldn’t know – I lived in Japan for an extended period, and I only learned to say about four words of Japanese that whole time. But in that spirit, a sign that you’ve fully absorbed and understood the importance of this seemingly nitpicky distinction is this – the phrase “building new houses doesn’t increase the housing supply” doesn’t sound even slightly odd to you. Let me try to unpack that. Demand, roughly, means how much we want something. A spike in egg prices will lead people to buy fewer eggs, but that’s not quite the same as saying people want eggs less than they used to. It only means people are less willing (or able) to buy as many eggs at the current price compared to before. Their demand for eggs hasn’t changed, but the quantity demanded has. The demand curve remains unmoved. Demand increases (or decreases) when we want something more (or less). Supply, roughly, means the capacity to produce something. Sticking with the example of eggs for now, a wave of avian flu has decreased egg production capacity – the supply curve has shifted to the left, reflecting the reduced capacity. If demand for eggs were to sharply decrease, that is, if people were to find eggs less desirable than before, perhaps due to sudden widespread health concerns about eggs or increased adoption of plant-based diets, the demand curve would shift left and the equilibrium price would fall, but the supply curve would stay put. If this happens, the quantity of eggs supplied would also drop, but the supply curve would stay put. The capacity for egg production wouldn’t have changed, but suppliers aren’t willing to produce as many eggs at the new lower price. This basic idea leads to a common confusion I see from NIMBYs about the effects of building new housing. Increasing the supply requires shifting the supply curve – or, in other words, increasing our capacity to build new housing. That’s not the same as merely building more housing in and of itself. Imagine a place where, due to tight regulations, the supply of housing is fixed. Your first impulse might be to think this means no new housing can be built, but that’s not quite right. It just means that the supply curve cannot shift. With a fixed supply curve, the quantity supplied can still increase. When the demand curve shifts further to the right and the supply curve stays fixed, quantity supplied can increase – but the equilibrium price will increase along with it. This means that in places where the supply curve is so tightly constrained as to be effectively fixed, new houses will only be built only when demanded by people willing and able to pay top dollar for them – that is, the rich. This means that despite new housing being built, the supply of housing hasn’t increased. For this place to increase the housing supply, as opposed to merely increasing the quantity of housing supplied, the housing market would need to be deregulated in a way that increases the capacity to build housing above what it was before. This can take the form of removing restrictions on multifamily units or limits on how tall apartment buildings can be, or eliminating minimum lot sizes, or streamlining a laborious and expensive approval process to build housing. If these kinds of measures were to be taken, then we can say that the housing supply has increased even prior to any new construction. Missing this seemingly nitpicky distinction is the source of the common confusion among many of the NIMBY types I mentioned before. They might see a place where housing is expensive (due to restricted supply), but they also notice that new housing is still being built. But this new housing, far from making housing more affordable, is almost exclusively expensive housing, only affordable by the rich. This, in their mind, undercuts the argument that increasing the housing supply will lower housing prices – because they don’t comprehend the difference between “increasing the housing supply” and merely “building more housing” – that is, the difference between an increase in supply and an increase in the quantity supplied.   Kevin Corcoran is a Marine Corps veteran and a consultant in healthcare economics and analytics and holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from George Mason University.  (0 COMMENTS)

Play the hand you’re dealt. This morning I rewatched a fun ESPN “30 for 30” show about the tuck rule and the role it played in the New England Patriots’ (aka “The New England Economists” according to my University of Western Ontario mentor, economist John Palmer) 2002 playoff victory over the Oakland Raiders. In the show Tom Brady and Charles Woodson sit on Brady’s couch and watch the key play with 1:40 left in the 4th quarter. Oakland is ahead 13-10 and if Brady’s loss of the ball  due to Woodson’s tackle is a fumble, Oakland wins. But the refs look at a replay and decide that the tuck rule applies. The Patriots go on to win and make it all the way to Brady’s first Super Bowl win. I could tell you all about the fun interaction between Brady and Woodson where at times they act like 14-year-old boys. But I want to make a point about sunk costs. Many of the Oakland defense players felt, understandably, cheated by a bad call. It wasn’t a bad call; it was good call to enforce a screwy rule. One player admits that because they felt cheated, they lost their intensity. A New England Patriot player who is interviewed, Tedy Bruschi, I believe, makes the point that Patriots coach Bill Belichick was always good at getting the players to accept the hand they were dealt, put it way, and play from there. Belichick, in short, recognized that sunk costs are sunk. Extra credit: What subject did Belichick major in when he attended Wesleyan College? (0 COMMENTS)