The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and The Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life

Two of Forbes magazine’s “world’s most powerful economists” provide the breakthrough ideas to challenge the assumptions of human decision-making.

Can economics be passionate? Can it centre on people and what really matters to them? And can it help us understand why they do what they do in everyday life? Two revolutionary economists believe it can.

In The Why Axis, Uri Gneezy and John List lead us on a journey to discover the economics underlying human motivation and how to structure the incentives that can get people to move mountains.

Finding the right incentive can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but Gneezy and List have pioneered an innovative approach to zeroing in on those needles. Like other economists, they gather data and build models, but then they go much, much further, embedding themselves in our messy world—the factories, schools, communities and offices where people live, work and play. Their goal: to discover solutions to the big, difficult problems, such as the gap between rich and poor, the violence plaguing inner city schools, why people really discriminate, and whether women are really less competitive than men.

Their revelatory and startling discoveries about how incentives really work are both groundbreaking and immensely practical. This research will change the way we both think about and take action on big and little problems. Anyone working in business, politics, education or philanthropy can use the approach Gneezy and List describe in The Why Axis to reach a deeper, more nuanced understanding of human behaviour and a better grasp of what motivates people and why.