Human behaviour during Covid has upended one of the most fundamental assumptions of economics, even if economists have not yet come around to admitting it. In sum: people are worse at big, important decisions than previously thought, and better at small, trivial ones.
Standard economics theory holds that people make relatively good decisions when there is a lot at stake. At the very least, they reason through the problem carefully, even if they do not always reach the optimal result. Alternatively, when the stakes are low, they process less information and their decision-making may be lackadaisical. People do not agonise over which paper clips to buy...
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