How we misunderstand economics and why it matters - the psychology of bias distortion and conspiracy
Routledge
This is the first book to explain why people usually misunderstand economic phenomena. It explains the mismatch between our cognitive endowment and the specific way economics analyzes economic phenomena. It documents numerous examples of misunderstandings and bias, and explains them by analyzing the tools people use to make sense of what is largely not understandable to them: metaphors, heuristics, ideology, reliance on psychological traits.
The book lays out what this means for policy makers and contains a range of recommendations based on the (glum) picture it documents.
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David Leiser is President of the Economic Psychology Division of the International Association for Applied Psychology (IAAP) and former President of IAREP (International Association for Research in Economic Psychology). He is Full Professor of Social Psychology at Ben Gurion University.