Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much Hardcover – September 3, 2013

This book is amazing! I learned a ton about how scarcity impacts people and their choices, and had a blast reading it at the same time. Engaging, thoughtful, entertaining and easy to understand. I hope desperately that the authors write more books in the field

Does having too little money affect your life? Of course, it does. I started reading this book more out of curiosity as to what the authors could possibly say beyond that poverty affects your lifestyle adversely.This truly worthwhile book goes way beyond financial poverty and beyond the superficial effects of not having enough money to pay your bills.Scarcity comes in many forms - money scarcity, time scarcity, companion scarcity, calorie scarcity, sleep scarcity, and on. Scarcity can make us more effective and less effective. Either way it affects our functioning in profound ways.When you have a deadline, something happens to your brain that does not happen when you do not. The deadline forces you to choose to complete the report over browsing the internet or playing with your new puppy. The intense focus you have is a function of time scarcity, and ignoring distraction is not a choice.Self-imposed deadlines come with a different level of choice; you can always decide not to observe self-imposed deadlines in favour of browsing, or the puppy.In studies of business meetings, Connie Gersick observed that the first half of meetings is diffuse. Much of the conversation strays off the topic. The second half of the meeting nearly always produces more progress as the group realises they are running out of time.A study of the effects of location was undertaken on a New Haven school situated next to a noisy railway line. It revealed that only one side of the school was affected by the noise. 6th graders whose classes were on the noisy side where academically behind the students on the quiet side - by a full year!That interruption affects cognitive ability is no surprise, but how severely it does, is shocking.In a recent study, students were asked to come to the laboratory around lunchtime not having eaten for four hours. Half the group was served lunch, and the other half told to begin the experimental work.Words were flashed on a screen for one third of a second and then students were asked to identify the word they saw. Was it ‘rake’ or ‘take’. One might expect the hungry students to perform more poorly, but that was not the case. They did as well as the satiated students. However, they did better on words related to food.In this case of calorie scarcity and in others cases of scarcity, brain functioning was affected at a level beyond conscious awareness.Even theoretical decision-making is affected by scarcity. People in different economic strata were give this problem to solve: Your mechanic informs you that your car requires a repair that will cost $300 half of which will be covered by your auto insurance. You can still drive the car, but eventually the effect will necessitate a much more expensive repair.Both those subjects coming from a lower and an upper economic group said they would do the immediate repair. The sensible decision.However, when the sum involved was changed to $3000 the reactions of the different economic strata was stark. Those in the upper economic groups said they would repair now to avoid the higher cost later. Those in the lower economic groups said they would wait to repair the vehicle.The salient point is that this was a hypothetical question – it was not their car and not their money. They may not even have owned a car!Experiencing money scarcity would mean they had monetary issues close to top of mind. Once the experimenters stimulated that part of the brain, the all-too-real non-hypothetical thinking about scarcity came to the fore. Coming up with $ 1,500 was beyond them, the credit card was exhausted.. The minimum payment due is so large they would not be able to meet even that this month. Whom can they borrow from to this time?A little stimulation raises a racket in their brains, and this racket affected their performance on a hypothetical problem! This is little different to the debilitating effect of a noisy train outside of a classroom.The better off had no such stimulation, and so they could answer the hypothetical question more reasonably. The poor answered the question unreasonably. One could conclude that they were less intelligent or less capable of rational thought.The waiter brings you a still water when you asked for a sparkling water. Is he concerned about his mother or his rent at a level that is pre-conscious? What does that do to a student writing an exam? Is it scarcity that is distracting and causing the poor performance and not the lack of intelligence or diligence?The implications of scarcity go far beyond what I had thought. Therein lies the value of this book. It will make you think about the impact of various types of scarcity in ways you probably have never thought about before.Readability Light --+-- SeriousInsights High -+--- LowPractical High -+--- LowIan Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

I devoured this book when it came out, and when I wanted to go back to my notes and highlights, I had to read the whole book again because I had highlighted so much of it. I'm now on my third time through, and somehow it keeps getting better. The topic is fascinating (at least to me!), the writing is tight and pulls you along, and the research is solid and engaging. Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir are star academics who use their giant brains and their sweat to make the world a better place--and they are.The investigation of scarcity is more complex than you'd realize, and more interesting. Interesting that they draw compelling parallels between very different types of scarcity--money, time, food--and very different life situations--from poverty in the developing world to wealthy workaholics in the West, to teach you about the psychology of scarcity. It focuses a person's mind on what they haven't got. Which makes them able to do a few things more efficiently, but for the most part is a huge cognitive drain that makes it impossible to function at their best.Everyone in public office, no, really everyone, should read this beautiful book.

In Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir explore the implications of scarcity, a condition that occurs when you have less than you feel you need. Scarcity comes in all shapes and sizes—we see it in money, sleep, work, packing, time with our kids, addictions to email and social media—no matter what the item, people are constantly battling between conditions of abundance and scarcity. For example, when college students are assigned a term paper a month before it is due, few rush out and get to work, yet at the last minute they become frantic and paper obsessed. Gone are the wasted moments brought on by procrastination, in is the condition of tunneling where every second counts, where the worker suddenly appears dissatisfied, where there cognitive ability (bandwidth) is taxed either for the benefit of the paper and the detriment of all else or perhaps for collective detriment in general.While the text has a slightly academic tilt at first, as it progresses Mullainathan and Shafir take a Freakencomics twist and creatively explore the world of scarcity. Whether it is the effects of being paid once a year on sugar cane farmers or the consequences of checking your email prior to starting on an unrelated project, the authors explore the unexpected consequences of scarcity. In terms of the former, an annual payment requires the farmer to budget an entire year from harvest point on, something that becomes increasingly taxing as their funds become scarce while checking that email before your child’s bath or personal writing time deteriorates said quality time for even if you don’t respond, your mind becomes taxed by the bandwidth required to ignore the email. In each instance, Mullainathan and Shafir explore situations in a way that moves beyond common sense and in an effort to find novel solutions to eliminate scarcity traps in favor of creating a productive, driven situation. Further, they dive into why, when given the opportunity to create a buffer from said scarcity, people often find themselves in the very same traps as before.