Booming Until It Hurts?

NEW HAVEN – In recent months, concern has intensified among the world’s financial experts and news media that overheated asset markets – real estate, equities, and long-term bonds – could lead to a major correction and another economic crisis. The general public seems unbothered: Google Trends shows some pickup in the search term “stock market bubble,” but it is not at its peak 2007 levels, and “housing bubble” searches are relatively infrequent.

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Donors Give More When They Have a Sense of Belonging

With the rise of behavioral economics, my profession is no longer so fixated on the theory that people are relentlessly selfish, striving only to maximize their own pleasure. We know, for example, that work is not just eight daily hours of suffering that people endure to make money for their own benefit. People actually like to work if they see meaning in it, and they can be generous with their money, too.

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