Why do some great business and policy ideas make it big while others fail to take off? That's the big question behind John List’s most recent book The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale.

John List is an economist at the University of Chicago, as well as chief economist at Lyft. He is also the author of The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life. Having worked for a number of governments & tech companies, he has dipped his toes in a lot of different waters. 

Hear how growing up going to baseball card auctions prepared John for his career as an economist studying, critical thinking and biases, thinking on the margin, and proper experimental design. 

Episode Quotes:

If your studies don't scale or if they are not representative, then you're going to go down wrong path:

The first step is actually generating or obtaining data that can inform your decision-making process. Now that's a great step, but it's also a step that can be very seductive in the sense that you think you're making the right decision. And it can actually be counterproductive to what you're trying to do.

We need more replication in social science studies:

If somebody is actually reading your work and trying to replicate it, you should take that is a compliment and you should be rewarded when people replicate your work. That doesn't happen in the social sciences. We need to think about the reward system on both the demand side and the supply side to replications and make sure that changes.

Thinking on the margin:

While people learn to think on the margin, it's really hard for the human mind to apply that concept to their state of play. Whether it's the white house or the boardroom or wherever, it's not an easy concept to say I'm going to use marginal thinking. And then how does marginal thinking suggest I should think through this problem, that's a part that we tend not to teach.

Show Links:

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at University of Chicago
• Professional Profile at IZA Institute of Labor Economics
• John List’s Website
• John List on Linkedin
• John List on Twitter

His work:

• John List on Google Scholar
• Enhancing Critical Thinking Skill Formation: Getting Fast Thinkers to Slow Down
• The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale
• The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life