28 Posts found for source_year: 2008

University of Chicago economists Kerwin Kofi Charles and Erik Hurst… along with Nikolai Roussanov of the University of Pennsylvania… found… insight into the economic differences between racial groups… [that] challenges common assumptions about luxury. Conspicuous consumption, this research suggests, is not an unambiguous signal of personal affluence. It’s a sign of belonging to a relatively poor group. Visible luxury thus serves less to establish … [ Read more ]

Author: Virginia Postrel | Source: The Atlantic (July2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Demographics, Economics | Economy, Excerpts

Financial bubbles are like epidemics— and we should treat them both the same way.

Author: Robert J. Shiller | Source: The Atlantic (July2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, used to say that most of us have a personality that looks very much like an onion: In the center you have the Id, a very simple component that all it wants is immediate gratification and self-Pleasure thus following the … Pleasure Principle. Built around the Id, there is a second entity called the Ego, which basically is a … [ Read more ]

Subjects: Psychology | Behavior, Thought Starters

Public anxiety over “excessive” consumer debt has a long, and misguided, history.

Author: Virginia Postrel | Source: The Atlantic (November2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts

What would you do if your son wanted to be a girl? Some doctors have a new and troubling answer.

Author: Hanna Rosin | Source: The Atlantic (November2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Ethics | Integrity | Morality, Excerpts, Health & Medicine, Individuality, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior, Sociology | Anthropology

An evolving approach to the science of pleasure suggests that each of us contains multiple selves—all with different desires, and all fighting for control. If this is right, the pursuit of happiness becomes even trickier. Can one self bind” another self if the two want different things? Are you always better off when a Good Self wins? And should outsiders, such as employers and policy … [ Read more ]

Author: Paul Bloom | Source: The Atlantic (November2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Psychology | Behavior

Airport security in America is a sham—“security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease.

Author: Jeffrey Goldberg | Source: The Atlantic (November2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Terrorism

Why asset bubbles are a part of the human condition that regulation can’t cure.

Author: Virginia Postrel | Source: The Atlantic (December2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, Psychology | Behavior, Sociology | Anthropology

A series of vampire novels illuminates the complexities of female adolescent desire.

Author: Caitlin Flanagan | Source: The Atlantic (December2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Literature | Arts, Psychology | Behavior

There is more than one way to get a rogue state to change its ways.

Author: Robeert S. Litwak | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy

Many of our worst fears about America’s voters are true.

Author: Larry M. Bartels | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

From afar, America’s presidential contests often look more like playground antics than a shining example of democracy. But looks can be deceiving.

Author: Denis MacShane | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, International, Politics & Public Policy

“Pollsters and pundits” has become a dismissive epithet in modern politics. Pollsters, at least, deserve much better.

Author: Scott Keeter | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

Eating “green” is not so easy.

Authors: Christopher L. Weber, H. Scott Matthews | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Environment | Sustainability, Excerpts, Food

A prominent historian ponders the long-term legacy of the elusive Bush Doctrine.

Author: John Lewis Gaddis | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, History, Politics & Public Policy

Matt Miller is right that “localist” arrangements in education deliver maximum power to teachers’ unions (“First, Kill All the School Boards,” January/February 2008 Atlantic), which can draw on national resources and political connections, stultifying attempts at real improvement. But in a national system, the fashionable, counterevidential theo­ries of the technocratic elite remain beyond correction since, being national, they have been removed from competition.

So try … [ Read more ]

Author: M. T. Pearse | Source: The Atlantic (April2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Education | Scholarship, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

You’ve heard it a million times: Nobody can beat the stock market, so just stash your investment dollars in index mutual funds and settle for “the average return.” Behind that nostrum is the so-called efficient market theory, which holds that stock prices already reflect all the available information about a company, making it impossible for anybody to get a leg up.

Efficient market theory no longer … [ Read more ]

Author: Robert A. Jaeger | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Finance | Investing

Human beings have never lacked for things to fight over, but for the last two millennia, they have fought the most over ideas involving the divine. Politics, technology, military capacity, and diseases have all played decisive roles in shaping history, yet it is impossible to understand the rise and fall of empires, the clash of civilizations, and the evolving balance of power without appreciating the … [ Read more ]

Author: Alan Wolfe | Source: The Atlantic (March2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Religion

Why is crime rising in so many American cities? The answer implicates one of the most celebrated antipoverty programs of recent decades.

Author: Hanna Rosin | Source: The Atlantic (July2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Demographics, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

A veteran American negotiator derives seven rules of the road from his decades of experience in Arab-Israeli peace talks.

Author: Aaron David Miller | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Spring2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, International, Politics & Public Policy