Olga's Odds & Evans

   The winter holidays are almost here, and the sense of excitement is in the air.  Even if you don’t celebrate anything in particular, you can look forward to the vacation week between Dec. 25 th  and Jan. 2 nd  forced upon us by office closings and our kids’ school break.  During this time, we tend to expect magic to happen: a wonderful family celebration, or perhaps that special present we have been dropping hints about.  We anticipate that everything will be just how we imagine it, but does reality match this expectation? Not usually...    As humans, we are built to anticipate the future. In fact, forecasting and scenario analysis is what has kept us alive in an evolutionary sense, like: “If I leave food lying around in my cave, will a bear stumble into it and wreak havoc?” Yet, as Daniel Gilbert explains in his brilliant  book , “ Stumbling on Happiness ,” humans tend to be terrible judges of what will make us happy. I won’t...

Finally, a relaxing mini-vacation! Just Mike and I in Aruba – a place that holds many nostalgic memories for us, including one very special marriage proposal 14 years ago (can it be that long ago???). With all the tranquil beauty of the sea, the beach, the perfect sunsets, one naturally reflects on … optimality of choices? Yes, when the “one” is an economist.       Here is a dilemma for you. Upon arrival at our hotel, the front desk clerk makes us an offer to upgrade to the club level.  The freebies include: continental breakfast, light lunch, hors d’oeurves and desserts in the evening, unlimited wine and top-shelf liquor throughout the day, and a daily spa “activity” which no one could explain to us. There is also some less exciting stuff like daily laundry and pressing, concierge service, and free internet (which is already free for all guests J ). The cost at face value: $300 per day for the two of us (a “discount” from the normal rate of $400 per day)....

I am a big fan of Wellesley College.  It is, after all, my Alma Mater and my place of employment. Because of this, I feel like I need to understand the single most negative attribute of the place from the student perspective: its “competitiveness.” Wellesley is dubbed a “competitive college” simply based on admission criteria: high SAT scores, excellence in high school academics and in extracurricular activities.  This results in selection: women who end up here are not random, but rather identified by certain common characteristics, one of which is most likely some level of “competitiveness.” In behavioral economics, we define competitiveness exactly in this way: it is the willingness of an individual to enter tournaments.  When students apply to Wellesley, they choose to enter a sort of tournament, where there are winners and losers. From a multitude of experiments, including  my own , we know that women are, on average, less willing to enter c...

Today marks 3 weeks since Mike and I “went off the deep end” – out of the blue, we decided to try “ the keto diet .” In some ways, it’s just one among many fad diets, like paleo or 5:2 . But, it also provides enough science (well, probably pseudo-science) to make sense to the skeptics like us. Neither of us has ever been on a strict diet before, as we truly are food-obsessed bon vivants.    Yet somehow, for some crazy reason, keto got us to stick to the plan.  Maybe it’s the meticulous record-keeping or the competition with oneself to stay within the allotted 20 grams of net carbs a day? These are certainly both features that appeal to our Type A personalities and therefore  got us through the first oh-so-miserable few days.   But I think that in the longer run it was something else.   For me, it has to do with loss aversion – the very human trait that describes an individual’s desire to avoid losing.   Loss aversion is associated with a relate...

Bibich winery, located on the picturesque northern Dalmatian coast of Croatia, does not have any Michelin stars. You won’t find it when you search TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet for “the best Croatian restaurant EVER.” In fact, between cracking somewhat inappropriate jokes and telling tales of the winery’s rich history, staff members insist that Bibich is absolutely positively not a restaurant. But I can tell you that I have yet to find a better culinary experience anywhere else in the world. (Believe me, after 36 countries and counting, I am still looking!) The cynical behavioral scientist in me recognizes the possible reasons that the 3-hour 14-course dinner with wine pairings at Bibich may be less of a pure exercise in culinary (over)indulgence and more of an example of clever marketing as an “anti-restaurant”.  For example, one clever differentiator of the place is its emphasis on wine.  The food, prepared with utmost care and inspiration by ...

Standing in the fourth row of black belts at the 116 th ITF Taekwon-do International Instructor Course in New York , I witnessed a real-life representation of the gender leadership gap.  Women were well-represented in the ranks of 1 st Degrees, showed up to a lesser extent among 2 nd and 3 rd Dans, could be seen here and there in my line of 4 th Dans, but only one or two stood in the front three lines. I literally got goose bumps when a woman was promoted to Master (7 th Degree), joining just one other female Master in the room. It made me want to ask them: How? What’s the secret?  The decrease in female representation with seniority is not unique to martial arts, of course.  One of the best visualizations of the leadership gap in business appears here .  Similar trends had shown up in academia and in politics . The reasons for these gaps remind me of the reasons why there aren’t more female Taekwon-do Masters. History Taekwon-do (ITF) was founded ...