This book will help you think more analytically. Doing so will enable you to better understand the world around you, to make smarter decisions, and to ultimately live a more fulfilling life. It draws on the maxims of Richard Zeckhauser, a legendary Harvard professor, who has helped hundreds of students and colleagues progress toward these goals. These maxims, one-sentence nuggets of wisdom that capture key principles for clear and effective thinking, are illustrated with practical examples from Richard’s colleagues and students. From these examples, you will learn how one colleague saved money on her wedding by thinking probabilistically, how Richard and his wife Sally made an agonizing health decision that significantly boosted Sally’s survival probabilities, and how the prime minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, used a maxim he learned from Richard 40 years ago to understand and deal with COVID-19 in his nation. This book provides vital insights for anyone who wants to think more effectively about the world. The author, Dan Levy, teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he has been a close faculty colleague and mentee of Richard Zeckhauser for more than 15 years.
Dan Levy has taught quantitative methods, policy analysis, and program evaluation at Harvard University for more than 15 years. He has conducted evaluations of social programs in a wide range of settings including Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mexico, Niger, Tanzania, and the United States. He is a passionate educator and currently serves as the faculty director of the Public Leadership Credential, the Harvard Kennedy School's flagship online learning initiative. He has won several teaching awards, including the university-wide David Pickard Award for Teaching and Mentoring. He wrote Teaching Effectively with Zoom: A practical guide to engage your students and help them learn. His teaching was featured in a book titled Invisible Learning by David Franklin. He grew up in Venezuela and received his PhD in Economics from Northwestern University.
Richard Zeckhauser is the Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy, Kennedy School, Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard College (summa cum laude) and received his PhD there. He is an elected fellow of the Econometric Society, the Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Sciences), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2014, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. His contributions to decision theory and behavioral economics include the concepts of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), status quo bias, betrayal aversion, and ignorance (states of the world unknown) as a complement to the categories of risk and uncertainty. Many of his policy investigations explore ways to promote the health of human beings, to help markets work more effectively, and to foster informed and appropriate choices by individuals and government agencies. Zeckhauser has published more than 300 articles. Apart from academics, Zeckhauser is a Senior Principal at Equity Resource Investments, a real estate private equity firm. He has won multiple national championships in contract bridge.
