Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow is amusing and intriguing at the same time. Amusing, because human behaviour can be moulded through slightest of changes in one's surroundings, as per the incidents narrated in the book and intriguing because you will find it hard to believe that the aspects of one's behaviour that one takes for granted could have some explanation based on scientific reasoning. It is not something random but something that can be observed repeatedly for a varied set of people. A lot of disciplines have data oriented research but this book is simply extraordinary in terms of the author's approach to explaining different behavioural aspects of one's personality. It may get you hooked to Behavioural Economics and you would want to explore more. Truly Exceptional :)
No wonder he got a Nobel Prize!

The Wide Realm of Economics

Economics by itself is a diverse field encompassing aspects of disciplines that we perceive to be strictly delineated from the others. Those aspects may seem interdisciplinary yet they build on the most basic of the principles of economics. It does not just relate to financial aspects of the globalized world, the kind of things that we read about on a daily basis in newspapers. Why the oil prices are rising or falling? Why India is doing better than China in terms of GDP growth rate? These are questions that have been known to be associated with Macroeconomics and a closer look delves on the Microeconomics involved in it too if we move on to the consumer level and firm level aspects of the economy's functioning but the students of economics or anyone who has even a passing interest in economics needs to know, It isn't only Finance. It is not just about how the global economy functions as a whole. That covers a broad picture, an aggregate, a sum of the parts but studying what makes the total can be extremely intriguing; the smallest of aspects of the biggest of phenomena you know! There is some rationality even there, if not rationality then a behaviour that may be predicted and quantified in terms of its consequences. Research work in recent years, work that has gained recognition, that has been used as the basis for a successful business model points to the areas one can study and make a difference in. The possibilities are endless. One just needs to go beyond one's general understanding and thinking. What one is thinking at the beginning of one's career in research is just the basic amalgamation of what one has learnt over the years. This is where you start to go beyond that. Using the knowledge you have to decipher a different aspect of the phenomena that you have known to be explained in a particular manner. There is a lot that can be done. You just need to think beyond what you know and learn beyond what interests you. As you learn more, you may just find something more interesting than what you always believed to be your core area of interest.