What is behavioral economics?

Behaviorial economics studies the effects of insights from psychology on economic decisions.

Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, was awarded the Nobel prize in economics in 2002, for his work in judgment and decision making. Kahneman’s work is the subject of his 2011 book, titled Thinking, Fast and Slow. He is the only non-economist to receive the Nobel prize in economics.

Kahneman in his book refers to intuition as operating automatically and quickly with little or no effort. In contrast, are effortful mental activities demanding attention, including complex computations. Two plus two requires no effort, but 17 . . . [more]

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

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There’s the old joke about how you recognize an intellectual: it’s someone who can hear Rossini’s William Tell Overture without thinking about the Lone Ranger. Putting aside the problem of whether anyone still knows about the Lone Ranger and his TV theme music, I’d say that the real intellectual is someone who knows that the William Tell Overture begins with a glorious four-minute slow movement featuring five solo cellos. (It occurs to me: might this not be a good time for a new Lone Ranger movie? But I digress . . . )

Such is the fate of introductions. They’re . . . [more]

The UK newspaper The Guardian has published a wonderful series on the future of the Internet called Battle for the Internet:

“The Guardian is taking stock of the new battlegrounds for the internet. From states stifling dissent to the new cyberwar front line, we look at the challenges facing the dream of an open internet”

Every day over a period of one week, the daily has tackled the major flashpoints relating to the future of cyberspace:

• the new Cold War (state censorship)
• militarization of cyberspace
• the new walled gardens (app stores, social network sites like Facebook)
• the IP wars

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the “end of days” for the traditional legal services provider – partnership law firms.

And I can already hear you grumbling. “How can there be an “end of days” for the current model of law firms? And don’t give us any of that, ‘UK Legal Services Act will change the world,’ crap. Kowalski, you’re crazy.”

Perhaps, but hear me out.

The partnership model of law firms is doomed to fail because of what Mancur Olson calls the collective action dilemma. Collective action dilemma occurs when you have a group of people all acting in . . . [more]

Legal marketers must have a little common ground with those who do public relations in Universities — taking important (yet questionably dry) material, and making it both understandable and interesting. And perhaps more important, fine tuning the message presentation for each intended audience.

Case in point, a recent study that came out of Wake Forest comparing pupil dilation response on left-side vs right-side photos (for those interested — your left side is always golden according to the research).

Let’s start with the PubMed link above, and look at the title: Emotive hemispheric differences measured in real-life portraits using pupil diameter . . . [more]

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), and the Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners (OIPCs) of Alberta and British Columbia have developed a guide titled Getting Accountability Right with a Privacy Management Program. The guide aims to help organizations implement an effective privacy management program that meets private-sector privacy legislation and to provide consistent direction on what it means to be an accountable organization when dealing with individuals’ personal information, accountability being the first and foremost obligation under privacy legislation.

These guidelines will help businesses take data protection from policy to practice, explained BC Information

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On April 25, 2012, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson directed federal lawyers to challenge the ruling that struck down Canada's prostitution laws to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Innovation… lawyers seldom operate on the cutting edge and certainly not the bleeding edge! That’s a given. It’s likely in your DNA. Risk averse. But how long will you stay in what once was a perfect business model that is now past its prime? That is the question.

Seth Godin points to the music industry…

The music business was perfect. Radio, record chains, Rolling Stone magazine, the senior prom, limited access to recording studios, the replaceable nature of the LP, the baby boomers… it all added up to a business that seemed perfect, one that could run for ever and

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Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of April 18 – 23.

♨ 1. Club Resorts Ltd. v. Van Breda 2012 SCC 17

[1] Tourism has grown into one of the most personal forms of globalization in the modern world. Canadians look elsewhere for the sun, or to see new sights or seek new experiences. Trips are planned and taken with great expectations. But personal tragedies do happen. Happiness gives way to grief, as in the situations that resulted in these appeals. A young woman, Morgan Van Breda, suffered catastrophic injuries on a beach in

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A hackathon (hack + marathon) is an event where computer programers, often in conjunction with graphic designers or other related disciplines, get together for marathon sessions to collaborate intensly on a project. There is a specific goal in mind, such as coding specific software or solving a specific problem.

Brooklyn Law School’s Incubator and Policy Clinic recently held its first legal hackathon, a day long event for law students, lawyers and entrepreneurs to help lawyers think more like hackers. One of the organizers said “What I’m hoping to get at today is to figure out how we as lawyers stop . . . [more]

In my last post, I promised to explore how the current commercial mediation model might be “tweaked” to unlock the full potential of mediation. There seemed to be a divide between “interest-based” or “facilitative” mediation (which is the focus of most mediation training programs) and the commercial mediation model.

Is there a way to preserve the foundational principles of interest-based negotiation and mediation while venturing into the world of commercial mediation?

Experienced litigators and some mediators have remarked that commercial mediation is really a purely distributive exercise which is only about the money. Is that ever really true? I . . . [more]