Robin Hanson, “Signalling” (MP3 audio), Econtalk, 2008/05/26 October 4, 2009
Posted by daviding in Talk Audio Download.Tags: behaviour, information, robin hanson, signalling
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Human beings send signals with our consumer behaviour.
Robin Hanson of George Mason University talks about the phenomenon of signalling–the ways people spend resources to convey information about ourselves to others.
It begins with Hanson revisiting his theory from an earlier podcast that we spend too much on medicine because we need to signal our concern for friends and family. The conversation then moves onto apply Hanson’s model of signalling to other areas of human behavior.
This is a wide-ranging discussion covering not just medicine, but real estate transactions, the wooing of a spouse, the role of education in the job market, parenting, the economics of self-deception, and Robin’s argument that we spend too much time on admirable activities.
Hanson on Signalling | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty
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