Articles

Articles About My Work:

		And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw The New York Times, April 8th, 2008 Synopsis: The Monty Hall Problem has struck again, and this time it's not merely embarrassing mathematicians. If the calculations of a Yale economist are correct, there’s a sneaky logical fallacy in some of the most famous experiments in psychology...
		Prison Conditions: Gently Does it The Economist, July 26th, 2007 Click to see the text. Synopsis: Excessively harsh conditions seem to make criminals more likely to re-offend. Are private prisons the answer?... Two studies draw contrary conclusions.
		Monkey Business: Can Capuchins Understand Money? by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt for The New York Times Magazine, June 5th, 2005 Click to see a scan, or just the text. Synopsis: In a clean and spacious laboratory at Yale-New Haven Hospital, seven capuchin monkeys have been taught to use money, and a comparison of capuchin behavior and human behavior will either surprise you very much or not at all, depending on your view of humans...
		Simian Economics: Monkeys Show the Same "Irrational" Aversion to Risks as Humans The Economist, June 25th, 2005 Click to see a scan, or just the text. Synopsis: Economists often like to speak of Homo economicus—rational economic man. In practice, human economic behaviour is not quite as rational as the relentless logic of theoretical economics suggests it ought to be...
		Money and Monkey Business by Mark Buchanan for The New Scientist, Nov 5th, 2005 Click to see a scan, or just the text. Synopsis: When it comes to money, it turns out we're no more rational than our primate cousins. But knowing this could pay dividends...
		Humans Ape Monkey Market Decisions by Heather Claborn for WNPR: Connecticut Public Radio, July 12th, 2005 Click to listen as an MP3.

The Endowment Effect: It's Mine, I Tell You
The Economist, June, 2008
Synopsis:
Mankind’s inner chimpanzee refuses to let go. This matters to everything from economics to law....

Why People Believe Weird Things About Money
The Los Angeles Times, January, 2008
Synopsis:
Evolution accounts for a lot of our strange ideas about finances....

Criminal Justice: Revolving Cell Door
The Atlantic Monthly, March, 2007
Synopsis:
Hard time is supposed to be hard. But a new study says harsher prison conditions also make criminals measurably more likely to offend again....

Maybe It's Time to Get Soft on Crime
The Washington Post, February 2nd, 2006
Synopsis:
That's because many criminals are more likely to go astray once they get out of prison if they faced longer sentences and more punitive conditions in the slammer, claim economists M. Keith Chen of Yale University and Jesse M. Shapiro of the University of Chicago...

Verhaltensforschung: Affen als Kleinsparer
Der Spiegel, June 27th, 2005
Synopsis:
Menschen entscheiden sich eher gegen mögliche Verluste als für verlockende Gewinne...

Study: Monkeys Ape Humans' Economic Traits
by Jacqueline Weaver for The Yale Bulletin, July 2005
Synopsis:
Scientists have learned that capuchin monkeys who are given "money" to trade for rewards make the same, sometimes faulty, economic decisions as humans do...

A Profile of Professor Keith Chen
by Corey Lomas for The Yale Economic Review, Spring 2005
Synopsis:
Keith Chen, Assistant Professor of Economics at the Yale School of Management, chats with the Yale Economic Review about Yale, prison sentencing, and his latest work with monkeys...