Strategies of commitment and other essays

Bibliographic Information

Strategies of commitment and other essays

Thomas C. Schelling

Harvard University Press, 2006

  • : [pbk.]

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents
Volume

ISBN 9780674019294

Description

All of the essays in this new collection by Thomas Schelling convey his unique perspective on individuals and society, whether discussing smoking and other addictions, global warming, segregation, or nuclear war. Schelling - a 2005 Nobel Prize winner - has been one of the four or five most important social scientists of the past fifty years, and this collection shows why.
Volume

: [pbk.] ISBN 9780674025677

Description

All of the essays in this new collection by Thomas Schelling convey his unique perspective on individuals and society. This perspective has several characteristics: it is strategic in that it assumes that an important part of people's behavior is motivated by the thought of influencing other people's expectations; it views the mind as being separable into two or more parts (rational/irrational; present-minded/future-minded); it is motivated by policy concerns--smoking and other addictions, global warming, segregation, nuclear war; and while it accepts many of the basic assumptions of economics--that people are forward-looking, rational decision makers, that resources are scarce, and that incentives are important--it is open to modifying them when appropriate, and open to the findings and insights of other social science disciplines. Schelling--a 2005 Nobel Prize winner-- has been one of the four or five most important social scientists of the past fifty years, and this collection shows why.

Table of Contents

Preface 1. Strategies of Commitment Climate and Society 2. What Makes Greenhouse Sense? 3. The Economic Diplomacy of Geoengineering 4. Intergenerational and International Discounting Commitment as Self-Command 5. Self-Command in Practice, in Policy, and in a Theory of Rational Choice 6. Coping Rationally with Lapses from Rationality 7. Against Backsliding 8. Addictive Drugs: The Cigarette Experience Society and Life 9. Life, Liberty, or the Pursuit of Happiness 10. Should Numbers Determine Whom to Save? Economics and Social Policy 11. What Do Economists Know? 12. Why Does Economics Only Help with Easy Problems? 13. Prices as Regulatory Instruments Weapons and Warfare 14. Meteors, Mischief, and War 15. Research by Accident 16. Vietnam: Reflections and Lessons Social Dynamics 17. Social Mechanisms and Social Dynamics 18. Dynamic Models of Segregation Decisions of the Highest Order 19. The Legacy of Hiroshima Credits Index

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