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These 4 Critical Success Principles From Economics That Will Shift Your Mind
Economics is often seen as boring.
Most people think it focuses only on dry issues like market forces and financial intricacies.
But, beneath the surface, it has valuable insights about how to make better decisions and succeed in life.
I spent four years at the university studying economics. Here are four principles I learned that can change the way you think.
Incentives Drive Our Choices And Behaviors
In the late 1700s, England started sending people who had broken the law to Australia.
Many of these people fell sick and died on the way. This happened because the ships were crowded, the food wasn’t good, and there was no proper medical care.
From 1790 to 1792, about 12% of the people sent to Australia this way didn’t survive, and on one ship, 37% of them died. This infuriated many people in England who thought banishing someone shouldn’t mean sending them to their death.
The government needed to find a way to convince the captains to take better care of their human cargo. They came up with a plan: pay the captains a bonus for each convict who walked off the boat in Australia alive.