Betting on Ideas: Wars, Invention, InflationIn this book, Reuven Brenner argues that people bet on new ideas and are more willing to take risks when they have been outdone by their fellows on local, national, or international scales. Such bets mean that people deviate from the beaten path and either gamble, commit crimes, or come up with new ideas in art, business, or politics, and ideas concerning war and peace in particular. By using evidence on gambling, crime, and creativity now and during the Industrial Revolution, by examining innovations in English and French inheritance laws and the emergence of welfare legislation, and by looking at what has happened before and after wars, Brenner reaches the conclusion that hope and fear, envy and vanity, sentiments provoked when being leapfrogged, make humans race. |
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Contents
Why Do Nations Engage in Wars? | 1 |
On Probability Thinking and Stress | 29 |
On Making Up Our Minds | 38 |
on Political Thought in Particular | 53 |
On Gambling Social Instability and Creativity Now | 57 |
Evidence on Patents Diagrams and Comments | 88 |
Firms and International Trade An Alternative Viewpoint | 90 |
On the Methodology of a Uniform Approach | 100 |
On Politics and Inflation | 131 |
Unemployment A Note | 164 |
What Insurance Can Indexation Provide? The Canadian Experiment | 166 |
IndexationAdditional Viewpoints | 184 |
The Choice | 186 |
Notes | 199 |
References | 225 |
| 241 | |
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Common terms and phrases
according acts alternative answer approach arguments assumed become behavior benefits Brenner cause century chance changes chapter circumstances conclusion condition contracts costs countries crime customs defined definition depends diminished discussed distribution of wealth economic effects entrepreneurs evidence examined example existence expected expenditures explain fact firms gamble given greater growth human ideas imply incentives income increase indexation individual Industrial inflation inflationary inheritance innovations Italy Keynes Keynes's later laws lead less lives looking lottery maintain means measure methods mind nature noted occur one's original people's perceived period political population position practical predictions presented probability problem productivity question reason redistribution relative result rise role seems shows similar social society stability suddenly suggests theory tion unemployment utility views wages wars
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Betting on Ideas: Wars, Invention, Inflation Wars, Invention, Inflation |
| Author | Reuven Brenner |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press, 1989 |
| ISBN | 0226074013, 9780226074016 |
| Length | 247 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / General Social Science / General Social Science / Sociology / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |