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Micromotives and Macrobehavior
"Schelling here offers an early analysis of 'tipping' in social situations involving a large number of individuals." —official citation for the 2005 Nobel Prize
Micromotives and Macrobehavior was originally published over twenty-five years ago, yet the stories it tells feel just as fresh today. And the subject of these stories—how small and seemingly meaningless decisions and actions by individuals often lead to significant unintended consequences for a large group—is more important than ever. In one famous example, Thomas C. Schelling shows that a slight-but-not-malicious preference to have neighbors of the same race eventually leads to completely segregated populations.
The updated edition of this landmark book contains a new preface and the author's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Micromotives and Macrobehavior was originally published over twenty-five years ago, yet the stories it tells feel just as fresh today. And the subject of these stories—how small and seemingly meaningless decisions and actions by individuals often lead to significant unintended consequences for a large group—is more important than ever. In one famous example, Thomas C. Schelling shows that a slight-but-not-malicious preference to have neighbors of the same race eventually leads to completely segregated populations.
The updated edition of this landmark book contains a new preface and the author's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
About the author
Thomas C. Schelling
32 books211 followersThomas Crombie Schelling was an American economist and professor of foreign affairs, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College Park. He is also co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He was awarded the
2005 Nobel Prize in Economics
(shared with Robert Aumann) for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis."
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
June 12, 2011
It's hard to know exactly how I would feel about this book if I hadn't had phd level micro economic theory before. Schelling doesn't assume a strong background in economics or game theory, and (it seems to me), he takes up a great deal of time explaining concepts like multiple equilibria, externalities, best response functions (although he doesn't characterize them that way), and the prisoner's dilemma clearly and carefully. Someone with a phd level economics background might become bogged down in these slow discussions, unless he/she enjoys considering how economics should be taught. For the reader already aware of these fundamental concepts, Schelling is at his best when he highlights how small individual preferences can lead to large scale undesirable social equilibria. His chapter on racial geographic segregation remains deeply pertinent and (rightly, in my opinion) suggests that only very weak racial preferences are needed to arrive at the present state of complete segregation. Depending on your familiarity with these sorts of arguments, this chapter might be either a powerful application of game theoretic thinking or a revelation.
May 7, 2012
Although this is definitely a classic book, I have to say that I did not enjoy reading it very much. Published in '78, it's the spiritual forebear of "Freakonomics," in that it is about applying economic reasoning and analysis to situations that don't involve the exchange of money for goods and services. I'm not even really a fan of "Freakonomics," but it is more enjoyable than MM because it focuses heavily on specific real-world issues. Schelling's book is entirely hypothetical. He discusses some issues of real significance, such as residential segregation, but not once does he take his models to the real data. This book is all about setting up models and seeing what they tell you.
I may be somewhat at fault here for reading the book at this time in my life. If I had read it when I was first being exposed to economics, I imagine it would have felt more engaging; as it was, it just felt a little flat.
I may be somewhat at fault here for reading the book at this time in my life. If I had read it when I was first being exposed to economics, I imagine it would have felt more engaging; as it was, it just felt a little flat.
April 16, 2012
I found Schelling's book to be rather light reading, but that didn't stop it from being both enjoyable and informative. Even though the ideas he presents aren't that deep, he does a really good job of teasing out really interesting examples in which intuitive hypotheses lead to very unintuitive results. Like some other reviewers, I thought that the book didn't really hold together as a unified whole, but that wasn't a huge problem. The Nobel Prize lecture, disconnected as it was, was very interesting, and ties into the rest of the book in intriguing ways, with its suggestion that "irrational" behavior, such as joint subscriptions to taboos which seem to make no sense in specific circumstances, really improve utility for everyone.
May 24, 2018
At the core of Schelling's book is the thesis - now well accepted - that individual actions driven by individual incentives have a habit of aggregating into all kinds of interesting macro phenomena. And therefore achieving a big picture policy target is intimately connected by the natural constraints of the problem, or by the actual incentives for people on the ground, or by the way heterogeneity in responses interact as we scale up.
Schelling was a pioneer in the use of game theory to pressing real life problems (he shared a Nobel for it) and you see the method being used extensively without any recourse to technical jargon. One of the most compelling arguments of the book is that being a social planner (in more practical contexts a leader) does not require outright dictatorial control to achieve the solution; rather ensuring coordination between the actors of the system is often more sustainable and efficient (think traffic lights). How do you design a system that makes people naturally coordinate in choosing their "correct" individual actions? As such, the book is highly relevant not only for social scientists or policy makers but leaders/managers as well.
The book is also, at a more superficial level, a precursor - or the precursor - to best selling Malcolm Gladwell-esque books such as Tipping Point, Freakonomics and the like. Of course, none of these books have had even half the impact that Schelling's life's work has had on the world. His brilliance displays itself in the way he painstakingly creates rudimentary models that explain the mechanics of his thesis.
The book's principal shortcoming is that, forty years after being first published, it hasn't aged well. It is often a very tedious read. There are chapters that are infuriatingly slow and pedantic - I would freely advice all who read to skip the second chapter. The chapter on gene selection in children (chapter 6) is also unsatisfactory. It talks about a future where parents can choose foetus for birth based on its traits (to clarify this is not talking about rare diseases or about abortion but selection on traits like height, physical features or sex) that is somewhat cavalier. Or maybe it's just that I come from a country which has a terrible (historical and ongoing) record in the incidence of female foeticide.
To attempt to get past the Goodreads rating system (my 5's only mean I recommend the book to be read; 4's mean I liked reading it), my normalized rating is 5/10.
(For comparison, Dante's Inferno is 10/10)
P.S.: For economists: The gene selection chapter does seem to talk about the Angrist-Evans instrument well before the famous paper was published (this refers to a famous paper by the Angrist and Evans who wanted to study the effect of family size on parents' labor supply). Not that Schelling wanted to use it as an instrument as far as I can see.
Schelling was a pioneer in the use of game theory to pressing real life problems (he shared a Nobel for it) and you see the method being used extensively without any recourse to technical jargon. One of the most compelling arguments of the book is that being a social planner (in more practical contexts a leader) does not require outright dictatorial control to achieve the solution; rather ensuring coordination between the actors of the system is often more sustainable and efficient (think traffic lights). How do you design a system that makes people naturally coordinate in choosing their "correct" individual actions? As such, the book is highly relevant not only for social scientists or policy makers but leaders/managers as well.
The book is also, at a more superficial level, a precursor - or the precursor - to best selling Malcolm Gladwell-esque books such as Tipping Point, Freakonomics and the like. Of course, none of these books have had even half the impact that Schelling's life's work has had on the world. His brilliance displays itself in the way he painstakingly creates rudimentary models that explain the mechanics of his thesis.
The book's principal shortcoming is that, forty years after being first published, it hasn't aged well. It is often a very tedious read. There are chapters that are infuriatingly slow and pedantic - I would freely advice all who read to skip the second chapter. The chapter on gene selection in children (chapter 6) is also unsatisfactory. It talks about a future where parents can choose foetus for birth based on its traits (to clarify this is not talking about rare diseases or about abortion but selection on traits like height, physical features or sex) that is somewhat cavalier. Or maybe it's just that I come from a country which has a terrible (historical and ongoing) record in the incidence of female foeticide.
To attempt to get past the Goodreads rating system (my 5's only mean I recommend the book to be read; 4's mean I liked reading it), my normalized rating is 5/10.
(For comparison, Dante's Inferno is 10/10)
P.S.: For economists: The gene selection chapter does seem to talk about the Angrist-Evans instrument well before the famous paper was published (this refers to a famous paper by the Angrist and Evans who wanted to study the effect of family size on parents' labor supply). Not that Schelling wanted to use it as an instrument as far as I can see.
November 10, 2011
Schelling provides some interesting insight on a myriad of economic/social issues through the lens of an economist. There are certainly more entertaining books written by economists, but this book is worth reading.
January 21, 2019
I can see how this book could be interesting to some, but I did not enjoy reading it, and the amount of insight I gained wasn’t sufficient to make up for my lack of enjoyment. I felt the author sometimes worded his hypothetical scenarios in a hard to grasp way, so I had to read over them several times to understand them. It wasn’t that they were complex to grasp, simply the words he used to convey them were imprecise or too vague. I also feel as though he repeated himself a lot, giving many sequential examples that differed only slightly from one another, and so didn’t serve to give the reader much new insight. However, my thinking about the dynamics of certain systems has been broadened in interesting ways, so that’s certainly a plus.
December 27, 2020
A microeconomics textbook hidden as a non-fiction book.
The books main theme, recursive effects of behaviours, is explained in different variations and with different explains over multiple chapters. The style is unfortunately quite repetitive and I wonder who is the target audience: for economists, the book does not contain too many new insights, but for non-economist, it is even too technical and also not relevant enough.
The books main theme, recursive effects of behaviours, is explained in different variations and with different explains over multiple chapters. The style is unfortunately quite repetitive and I wonder who is the target audience: for economists, the book does not contain too many new insights, but for non-economist, it is even too technical and also not relevant enough.
February 7, 2021
Feel disappointed. This is a classic book on social behaviour. There are a lot of models and good explanations. But at the same time there is not enough generalization, conclusion on the phenomena. So, in the end you may use this book more as a reference for models, less as a source of any kind of geberal theory. And, yes, some of the content is already outdated.
December 27, 2020
Very much a classic. Many of the points seem obvious, but Schelling’s treatment is rigorous without being math heavy. His overview of sorting (residential segregation, for instance) was interesting and is worth a read.
The book was reprinted in light of Schelling’s 2005 Nobel Prize and (more likely) due to the success of Freakonomics.
Case in point, purchased my copy back before 2008 at a suburban Kansas City Border’s.
Many other reviews have compared it to Freakonomics. Frankly, I don’t see the connection. Schelling was interested in dynamic theories derived from hypotheses about individual behavior. Freakonomics, John Dinardo called it, was scholarship in the service of storytelling. Schelling is about storytelling in the service of scholarship in the best tradition such as Akerlof’s story regarding the used car market.
The book was reprinted in light of Schelling’s 2005 Nobel Prize and (more likely) due to the success of Freakonomics.
Case in point, purchased my copy back before 2008 at a suburban Kansas City Border’s.
Many other reviews have compared it to Freakonomics. Frankly, I don’t see the connection. Schelling was interested in dynamic theories derived from hypotheses about individual behavior. Freakonomics, John Dinardo called it, was scholarship in the service of storytelling. Schelling is about storytelling in the service of scholarship in the best tradition such as Akerlof’s story regarding the used car market.
November 23, 2017
Yah, begitulah peraih Nobel Ekonomi ini. Game Theory itu tak lebih dari sekedar prasangka saja...
Direkomendasikan kepada : Orang kiri yang mau membaca "sastra" orang kanan.
Direkomendasikan kepada : Orang kiri yang mau membaca "sastra" orang kanan.
July 31, 2020
Micromotives is an exciting exploration of how group behavior is shaped by individual preferences (among other things). These emergent phenomena are interesting to read about and Schelling makes them accessible to most.
The most famous example from this book is the "Schelling Model of Segregation" which posits that segregation is nothing more than a consequence of individual preferences, "de facto." While this may be true in some spheres, like where people sit in a cafeteria, readers should be cautioned against concluding that this description of segregation is an accurate depiction of racial segregation. For a detailed explanation racial segregation in the United States, I recommend The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein.
The most famous example from this book is the "Schelling Model of Segregation" which posits that segregation is nothing more than a consequence of individual preferences, "de facto." While this may be true in some spheres, like where people sit in a cafeteria, readers should be cautioned against concluding that this description of segregation is an accurate depiction of racial segregation. For a detailed explanation racial segregation in the United States, I recommend The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein.
May 17, 2022
Carefully written in an the unassuming style of a scientist, even when sharing his attitudes , such as his sentiment that equilibrium analysis is overused in the sciences, and that there is nothing particularly attractive about equilibrium. He says that an equilibrium is “simply a result. It is what is there after something has settled down.” I take it he means this the way a Physicist or Chemist would refer to a ground state (the state of lowest energy / conservation of energy).
Over & over through the book Schelling shows that while you can have clear & familiar definitions of factors in simple equations which governing simple processes that follow even only 1 or 2 very simple rules, that you can still end up with surprising outcomes. For instance , Schelling references “identical equations”. The formal definition of an identical equation is, “one that holds irrespective of numerical values. The statement (a+b)(a-b) = a2 - b2, is not an equation that we solve for the values of a & b that make it true; it is true for any values of a & b. It is an unconditional statement. " Schelling applies this to real world situations, even in "closed systems".
For example, If you’ve ever waited forever in line at a ski lift, you might have wondered why they don't speed up the chairs to reduce the waiting time.
But it would then surprise you to learn, speeding up the lift is actually counterproductive. Why? Because ski resorts are closed systems, where people move between four activities: going up the lift, coming down, standing in line or sipping cocoa in the lodge.
Time spent sitting around the fireplace is not affected by speeding up the lift, and neither is time spent coming down the slope. In contrast, the waiting time is influenced – negatively. If people get up the mountain faster, they will be back down to line up again sooner, making the lines longer! So every minute you save sitting in the speedier lift would add to your waiting time at the bottom of the slope.
Then how could they effectively reduce the waiting time? Only by opening up the system. If more seats or a second lift were added, fewer people would need to stand in line at any one time, and the waiting time would be reduced.
As an economist, Schelling points out that your pay raise is your employer's inflation & potentially passed on to the consumer as inflation.
A more profound insight of Schelling is that even slight preferences function as micromotives which lead to large scale macrobehavior such as segregation of social & economic groups.
People like to be both good at what they do and feel challenged. Without challenge you'd be bored and will eventually leave. People like competition, but only if they beleive they can win. So, if you feel overly outmatched you will eventually leave. Therefore you will seek out places and people & endeavors which challenge you, and push you to improve your skills, but where you feel those improvents are wins.
If you , for example, join a league: you don’t want to be always playing against opponents who are easy to beat. You want to face opponents who can drive you to strengthen your abilities & stretch your reach.
These countervaling desires steer us into Goldilocks Zone groups which fit our two conditions of competition and challenge, which results in low variations of abilities in groups.
Participant preferences lead to low variation in many real world systems. Hypothetically, consider an insurance plan where every member pays the same premium, but, of course, only those who get injured are compensated. In this scenario, healthy, low-risk members get the worst deal: they pay the higher price pro-rata for the cost of the injured but reap no benefit personally.
Eventually, other financial demands will drive these low-risk members to leave this insurance plan for a cheaper one which excludes high risk clients. As a result, the proportion of high risk clients will increase, and so will the premiums. More low-risk members will leave, and the vicious cycle will continue until only a small high-mortality, high-risk group is left.
Such micromotive preferences frequently push us to associate with people similar to us – whether we intend to or not.
A more complex version of this won Schelling the nobel prize in economics in 2005:
Schelling's model of segregation :
Let's use a checker board as a metaphor for a neigjborhood with red & black checkers. Start by distributing an equal number of reds and blacks randomly on the checkerboard, leaving approximately half the squares blank.
Let’s assume that every black wants at least half of its neighbors to also be black. And even if Reds are less fussy, and are satisfied if at least one third of their neighbors are also Reds, then the macrobehavior of the neighborhood will >80% segregate itself by micromotivated individual "mild" preferences.
Schelling uses game theory to play this out.
Now start by moving every red and black piece whose immediate neighborhood doesn't comply with their preferences to the nearest empty square. Repeat until all pieces on the board are “satisfied.”
You will often end up with completely segregated sides of the board.
If everyone is indifferent to class (race, religion, wealth, politics, etc.) , no one has reason to move. If everyone is absolutely intolerant, refusing to live near anyone of the other class, then total segregation is the only stable solution. For everything in between those 2 extremes, for groups of near equal populations,
if Bª ≥ B seg ≈ ⅓ ; the Schelling Segregation Model shows how peoples’ initial "mild" preference to have a few neighbors similar to themselves can soon lead to migrations to highly segregated areas.
This doesn’t mean they prefer segregated neighborhoods – it just shows that they don’t want to live in a minority status, & given the choice, even a slight preference will reinforce the polarization.
There are very many real world applications.... thus the Nobel Prize.
Over & over through the book Schelling shows that while you can have clear & familiar definitions of factors in simple equations which governing simple processes that follow even only 1 or 2 very simple rules, that you can still end up with surprising outcomes. For instance , Schelling references “identical equations”. The formal definition of an identical equation is, “one that holds irrespective of numerical values. The statement (a+b)(a-b) = a2 - b2, is not an equation that we solve for the values of a & b that make it true; it is true for any values of a & b. It is an unconditional statement. " Schelling applies this to real world situations, even in "closed systems".
For example, If you’ve ever waited forever in line at a ski lift, you might have wondered why they don't speed up the chairs to reduce the waiting time.
But it would then surprise you to learn, speeding up the lift is actually counterproductive. Why? Because ski resorts are closed systems, where people move between four activities: going up the lift, coming down, standing in line or sipping cocoa in the lodge.
Time spent sitting around the fireplace is not affected by speeding up the lift, and neither is time spent coming down the slope. In contrast, the waiting time is influenced – negatively. If people get up the mountain faster, they will be back down to line up again sooner, making the lines longer! So every minute you save sitting in the speedier lift would add to your waiting time at the bottom of the slope.
Then how could they effectively reduce the waiting time? Only by opening up the system. If more seats or a second lift were added, fewer people would need to stand in line at any one time, and the waiting time would be reduced.
As an economist, Schelling points out that your pay raise is your employer's inflation & potentially passed on to the consumer as inflation.
A more profound insight of Schelling is that even slight preferences function as micromotives which lead to large scale macrobehavior such as segregation of social & economic groups.
People like to be both good at what they do and feel challenged. Without challenge you'd be bored and will eventually leave. People like competition, but only if they beleive they can win. So, if you feel overly outmatched you will eventually leave. Therefore you will seek out places and people & endeavors which challenge you, and push you to improve your skills, but where you feel those improvents are wins.
If you , for example, join a league: you don’t want to be always playing against opponents who are easy to beat. You want to face opponents who can drive you to strengthen your abilities & stretch your reach.
These countervaling desires steer us into Goldilocks Zone groups which fit our two conditions of competition and challenge, which results in low variations of abilities in groups.
Participant preferences lead to low variation in many real world systems. Hypothetically, consider an insurance plan where every member pays the same premium, but, of course, only those who get injured are compensated. In this scenario, healthy, low-risk members get the worst deal: they pay the higher price pro-rata for the cost of the injured but reap no benefit personally.
Eventually, other financial demands will drive these low-risk members to leave this insurance plan for a cheaper one which excludes high risk clients. As a result, the proportion of high risk clients will increase, and so will the premiums. More low-risk members will leave, and the vicious cycle will continue until only a small high-mortality, high-risk group is left.
Such micromotive preferences frequently push us to associate with people similar to us – whether we intend to or not.
A more complex version of this won Schelling the nobel prize in economics in 2005:
Schelling's model of segregation :
Let's use a checker board as a metaphor for a neigjborhood with red & black checkers. Start by distributing an equal number of reds and blacks randomly on the checkerboard, leaving approximately half the squares blank.
Let’s assume that every black wants at least half of its neighbors to also be black. And even if Reds are less fussy, and are satisfied if at least one third of their neighbors are also Reds, then the macrobehavior of the neighborhood will >80% segregate itself by micromotivated individual "mild" preferences.
Schelling uses game theory to play this out.
Now start by moving every red and black piece whose immediate neighborhood doesn't comply with their preferences to the nearest empty square. Repeat until all pieces on the board are “satisfied.”
You will often end up with completely segregated sides of the board.
If everyone is indifferent to class (race, religion, wealth, politics, etc.) , no one has reason to move. If everyone is absolutely intolerant, refusing to live near anyone of the other class, then total segregation is the only stable solution. For everything in between those 2 extremes, for groups of near equal populations,
if Bª ≥ B seg ≈ ⅓ ; the Schelling Segregation Model shows how peoples’ initial "mild" preference to have a few neighbors similar to themselves can soon lead to migrations to highly segregated areas.
This doesn’t mean they prefer segregated neighborhoods – it just shows that they don’t want to live in a minority status, & given the choice, even a slight preference will reinforce the polarization.
There are very many real world applications.... thus the Nobel Prize.
January 27, 2018
This work of Schelling as any by him has enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game theoretic analysis.
This great work even with its moderate page size deals with a great array of problems from showing how small negligible preferences can lead to great aggregate outcomes like when analyzing segregation and the dying seminar,to quick but intriguing analysis of models and families of models to equilibrium analysis,to the extension of the prisoner dilemma to n players and going beyond the situations where the greatest collective outcome is when all pick ‘the unpreferred decision’ covering where it’s best when some choose decision x while others choosing ‘y’ and more.
This book is a must for any one studying economics,sociology,group psychology,politics,international affairs(substituting individuals with countries)and any policy maker.
This great work even with its moderate page size deals with a great array of problems from showing how small negligible preferences can lead to great aggregate outcomes like when analyzing segregation and the dying seminar,to quick but intriguing analysis of models and families of models to equilibrium analysis,to the extension of the prisoner dilemma to n players and going beyond the situations where the greatest collective outcome is when all pick ‘the unpreferred decision’ covering where it’s best when some choose decision x while others choosing ‘y’ and more.
This book is a must for any one studying economics,sociology,group psychology,politics,international affairs(substituting individuals with countries)and any policy maker.
January 6, 2018
The fact that individual preferences or actions can lead to unintended or non-designed aggregate/social outcomes is a fundamental idea in economics. After all, this is exactly what Smith was on about when he described the order borne out of each individual's economic decisions as being seemingly guided by an "invisible hand". Another result economists are aware of, despite the popular conception of the "invisible hand", is that the aggregate outcome or order resulting from individual choices need not be individually or socially optimal, especially if individuals do not take into account how their choice affects the choices of others. In Micromotives and Macrobehavior it is Schelling's aim to call attention this point.
Most schooled in intermediate to intermediate/advanced game theory will be familiar with the methods/models used by Schelling in this book. The classics, from the prisoner's dilemma to tragedy of the commons to the market for lemons are covered. The book's real strength is, for those familiar and unfamiliar with these models, is when it offers a both non-technical and intuitive presentation of these ideas. In their own right Chapters 3 through 5 could stand on their own as an instructive presentation why social scientists (particularly economists) use models, and more importantly how they can be employed in a useful way. The chapter on models of neighbourhood segregation is outstanding in this regard. These classic models illuminate an idea that may be not be totally obvious: that highly segregated neighbourhoods can exist even if a large portion of the population is not bigoted or would prefer (all else equal) an integrated society. Schelling does a good job of showing how a simplified model can elucidate this interesting and counterintuitive point, while not forgetting to remind the reader that this is only one layer and a multifaceted phenomenon.
I find that the latter chapters of the book somewhat lost the thread of the rest of the book. The chapter "Choosing Our Children's Genes" spent too much time postulating how it might be possible that we can choose characteristics of our children such as sex, IQ, height etc. I found this to be bizarre and distracting, especially the discussion of how to develop methods such that we would know the outcomes of these variables early enough in a pregnancy that abortion would be viable (don't get me wrong, I'm pro-choice, it just seemed this discussion was unneeded and distracted from the point of the chapter). I feel this section would have much better served the thesis of overall book if it had just asked "what if we could choose" (maybe a small paragraph stating that this might actually be possible in the future) these characteristics, and then looked at the aggregate results generated by individual preference choices.
The last chapter which presents strategic binary choice models comes off as less intuitive than the rest of the book. The explanation of the prisoner's dilemma and beyond is concise and well done, but I felt the connection to the overall thesis of the book was not well established. Of course, it is implicit that the prisoner's dilemma produces a non-optimal social (and individual) outcome, and we could see that many of the other games portrayed here resulted in outcomes that were non-optimal as well. Schelling does not compellingly call attention to this in a way that ties it into the overarching thesis of the book. While that may not be important for people who have seen or already understand the implications of these models, given that this book is supposed to be directed to a more general audience, it would be a warranted inclusion. I actually laughed out loud when this chapter, and thus the book, ended by giving a limited taxonomy of strategic multiplayer binary choice games. You'd think an editor would have implored Schelling to include a conclusion that tied the ideas in the book together.
Despite the problems I have outlined I still gave this book 4 stars. This is because the presentation of the first 5/7ths of the book is very well done. I think that everyone who is at least mildly interested in the social sciences should read chapters 3 through 5 as it is one of the best descriptions of how and why social scientists use models.
Most schooled in intermediate to intermediate/advanced game theory will be familiar with the methods/models used by Schelling in this book. The classics, from the prisoner's dilemma to tragedy of the commons to the market for lemons are covered. The book's real strength is, for those familiar and unfamiliar with these models, is when it offers a both non-technical and intuitive presentation of these ideas. In their own right Chapters 3 through 5 could stand on their own as an instructive presentation why social scientists (particularly economists) use models, and more importantly how they can be employed in a useful way. The chapter on models of neighbourhood segregation is outstanding in this regard. These classic models illuminate an idea that may be not be totally obvious: that highly segregated neighbourhoods can exist even if a large portion of the population is not bigoted or would prefer (all else equal) an integrated society. Schelling does a good job of showing how a simplified model can elucidate this interesting and counterintuitive point, while not forgetting to remind the reader that this is only one layer and a multifaceted phenomenon.
I find that the latter chapters of the book somewhat lost the thread of the rest of the book. The chapter "Choosing Our Children's Genes" spent too much time postulating how it might be possible that we can choose characteristics of our children such as sex, IQ, height etc. I found this to be bizarre and distracting, especially the discussion of how to develop methods such that we would know the outcomes of these variables early enough in a pregnancy that abortion would be viable (don't get me wrong, I'm pro-choice, it just seemed this discussion was unneeded and distracted from the point of the chapter). I feel this section would have much better served the thesis of overall book if it had just asked "what if we could choose" (maybe a small paragraph stating that this might actually be possible in the future) these characteristics, and then looked at the aggregate results generated by individual preference choices.
The last chapter which presents strategic binary choice models comes off as less intuitive than the rest of the book. The explanation of the prisoner's dilemma and beyond is concise and well done, but I felt the connection to the overall thesis of the book was not well established. Of course, it is implicit that the prisoner's dilemma produces a non-optimal social (and individual) outcome, and we could see that many of the other games portrayed here resulted in outcomes that were non-optimal as well. Schelling does not compellingly call attention to this in a way that ties it into the overarching thesis of the book. While that may not be important for people who have seen or already understand the implications of these models, given that this book is supposed to be directed to a more general audience, it would be a warranted inclusion. I actually laughed out loud when this chapter, and thus the book, ended by giving a limited taxonomy of strategic multiplayer binary choice games. You'd think an editor would have implored Schelling to include a conclusion that tied the ideas in the book together.
Despite the problems I have outlined I still gave this book 4 stars. This is because the presentation of the first 5/7ths of the book is very well done. I think that everyone who is at least mildly interested in the social sciences should read chapters 3 through 5 as it is one of the best descriptions of how and why social scientists use models.
December 25, 2023
Schelling is an economist who realized how the game theory relates to both the Cold War and economics. He wrote about both in The Strategy of Conflict and in Arms and Influence. He is a deep thinker whose mind makes these kinds of connections. However, this book is both more accessible and more fun to read. I came across a recommendation when I took an online course on Model thinking and soon realized that a big chunk of that course came from Schelling's intriguing research on segregation.
Some years back I read The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference byMalcolm Gladwell? and later Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers. I soon realized that Gladwell churns out these watered-down versions of ideas that originate from someone else. In the first case, the source seems to be this popular science monograph Micromotives and Macrobehavior by Thomas C. Schelling. Nobel Memorial Prize in Economy Laureate.
Many luminaries write popular science books on their areas of research. While these texts are populistic and simplified, you are getting an accessible and direct line to the mind of someone who not only advanced the frontiers of human knowledge but is recognized as the very best in their field.
Unlike Gladwell, Schelling is much better at explaining both the high concept captured in the title, namely how localized personal preferences can trigger a whole cascade of events that aggregate into globally visible changes, but he is very capable of enunciating how he came up with this notion without a computer model, just a checkers board and some change... Unlike the tipping point, this idea was not very intuitive to start with. Perhaps because of Schelling's thinking, hypothesizing, and testing his ideas over several years. Perhaps because he is not shy about sharing his inner thinking process.
Life is short, and I really wish I never wasted time on Best Sellers by Gladwell, and about 20 other populists, when reading their titles provide 90% of the content. In this case, I am glad that I found the source.
Some years back I read The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference byMalcolm Gladwell? and later Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers. I soon realized that Gladwell churns out these watered-down versions of ideas that originate from someone else. In the first case, the source seems to be this popular science monograph Micromotives and Macrobehavior by Thomas C. Schelling. Nobel Memorial Prize in Economy Laureate.
Many luminaries write popular science books on their areas of research. While these texts are populistic and simplified, you are getting an accessible and direct line to the mind of someone who not only advanced the frontiers of human knowledge but is recognized as the very best in their field.
Unlike Gladwell, Schelling is much better at explaining both the high concept captured in the title, namely how localized personal preferences can trigger a whole cascade of events that aggregate into globally visible changes, but he is very capable of enunciating how he came up with this notion without a computer model, just a checkers board and some change... Unlike the tipping point, this idea was not very intuitive to start with. Perhaps because of Schelling's thinking, hypothesizing, and testing his ideas over several years. Perhaps because he is not shy about sharing his inner thinking process.
Life is short, and I really wish I never wasted time on Best Sellers by Gladwell, and about 20 other populists, when reading their titles provide 90% of the content. In this case, I am glad that I found the source.
April 15, 2021
there are some interesting situations where seemingly simple individual behaviors aggregate to surprising and potentially disappointing collective results: hockey players given an individual choice will opt for no helmet, making themselves collectively worse off and begging for league-mandated helmets; homeowners with a slight preference to live near people who look like themselves will induce stark segregation that shocks their own consciences. if these examples are familiar it is because this book introduced them.
the style of reasoning used in this book is now so familiar that it was briefly a meme: you could say schelling was the original "it's time for some game theory" guy. but that would be unfair, i think: the meme is mocking a top-down, overly theoretic way of forcing the facts into speculative theories. in this book schelling is sensitive to the facts of concrete situations, working in a bottom-up fashion that starts with humdrum examples taken from life, adding more detailed observations to the model until he brings it to the breaking point.
one pleasure of the book is seeing a systematic thinker at work: when schelling is done modeling a situation, he begins turning the parameter dials to see what other interesting outcomes he can get in theory and considering what concrete situations they might describe. when he's exhausted those possibilities, he lays the various models out and organizes them into logical schema. even there he does not stop, but instead ponders the nature of these schema, their limitations, their general properties: where do these simple accounting identities come from? what are the limits of their application? what kinds are there for closed and open systems? why do they seem obvious only after we have used them for a time?
schelling has a unique mind and i may need to dip into his other books.
the style of reasoning used in this book is now so familiar that it was briefly a meme: you could say schelling was the original "it's time for some game theory" guy. but that would be unfair, i think: the meme is mocking a top-down, overly theoretic way of forcing the facts into speculative theories. in this book schelling is sensitive to the facts of concrete situations, working in a bottom-up fashion that starts with humdrum examples taken from life, adding more detailed observations to the model until he brings it to the breaking point.
one pleasure of the book is seeing a systematic thinker at work: when schelling is done modeling a situation, he begins turning the parameter dials to see what other interesting outcomes he can get in theory and considering what concrete situations they might describe. when he's exhausted those possibilities, he lays the various models out and organizes them into logical schema. even there he does not stop, but instead ponders the nature of these schema, their limitations, their general properties: where do these simple accounting identities come from? what are the limits of their application? what kinds are there for closed and open systems? why do they seem obvious only after we have used them for a time?
schelling has a unique mind and i may need to dip into his other books.
June 28, 2018
This book explores models and analytical methods to reason about patterns observed on collective population based on individual choices. Author takes us through a range of examples to show how our (sometimes weak) preferences or preference from limited set of participants in a population can lead to interesting patterns on the aggregate. It's also very interesting to see how it's not possible to use observed patterns on aggregate population to infer individual choices. The book starts from very simple analysis methods to understand why 'critical mass phenomenon' exists. You are then progressively introduced to other examples that have stronger network effects - in these cases individual preferences have strong impact on distribution on the aggregate population. The first couple of chapters you are shown outcomes because of 'information imbalance between market participants'. There is a chapter that analyses how neighborhoods tend to be integrated or segregated based on individual preferences of few participants. Lack or availability of information about some aggregate statistic like sex ratio can have interesting influence on our choices even if we have complete control over what we choose (having the ability to choose sex of a baby is used as an example) - sometimes it's better to be a victim of chance. The last chapter introduced you to Game Theory but it's one of the hardest ones to absorb because everyday examples are used to explain these and they don't have the rigor to completely absorb the content. This goes for the whole book! It's a lot of theory packed in a few hundred pages!
September 23, 2016
This book taught me to think a little more analytically about what happens in standard situations when individual, free choices lead to aggregate behaviours that nobody wants.
Schelling warns the reader that every depicted function is nothing more than what it is - a model, an ideal scenario, free from its subtle, but no less important features. Schelling's functions aim at "illustrating the kind of analysis that is needed, some of the phenomena to be anticipated, and some of the questions worth asking"; typically, they involve two-person scenarios as the notorious prisoner's dilemma, or they focus on broader dynamics where the object of study is equally 'simple' - behavioural contrapositions between blacks and whites, rich and poor, young and old, etc.
Given that no underlying principle could be extracted from such a broad array of phenomena, Schelling lays out an interesting overview of macro-features: one is when phenomena occur in pairs as the previous dichotomies do, one when populations are guided by a principle of conservation (for example: no matter how hard you try, you can never get rid of the worst 10% employees, for the statistical feature of being 'the worst' is independent of the members of the system - the only solution will be to close your office), or move through a semi-closed system; Schelling then talks about complementary population sets as the two sexes or two 'races' (Schelling writes his papers in the Seventies, when racial issues were prominent in the US), and that "the independent variable in a system of behaviour often proves t be the sum of the dependent variables in a system", and "people react to a totality of which they are part".
Famous "critical mass" phenomena are just part of the family. One of the funny things about them, is that "even if one of the outcomes is unanimously chosen, we cannot infer that it is preferred from the fact that it is universally chosen." To appreciate such an intuitive statement, graphics are an extremely useful tool, even though a little unwelcome for those who don't like to see reality through straight lines.
S-shaped lines do help a lot, though. In "Thermostats, Lemons, and Other Families of Models" Schelling analyses how different scenarios may play out depending on which metrics we choose and act from to define phenomena. "If absolute numbers are what matter ... the activity is likely to be self-sustaining in a large group but not in a small one." Think of a typical dynamic, where people would go to that bar only if n. people are hanging out.
"If it is proportions that matter ... there is the possibility of dividing or separating populations." Speaking of language accent or fashion, for example, separating a population would have the effect of reshaping proportions, and make some behaviours more or less easily adopted.
An ethical and much actual note comes from the discussion of commons. Social contracts are sometimes blamed for not really being able to solve our problems. Schelling shows that such view is superficial, and that in the end having rules, being good or bad, is better than none.
In a classic problem of electrical overload, that half of the population which undergoes voluntary restriction may well be angry at the free riders. Nevertheless, even though free riders are better off than the other half, "the cooperative half may be better off for having found a way to make themselves cut back in unison." Schelling here maybe suggests that 'being better off' may not be just to exert one's individual choice unrestrainedly; there is a value, though less individual and thus less tangible and measurable, in the ability of acting 'in unison'. And that ability, I'd further suggest, may well come in hand in the future.
Speaking of segregation and its dynamics, Schelling strongly opposes the view that such aggregate phenomenon has any social efficiency. Just as romance and marriage influence the aggregate genetic treasure that we'll bring on, just as depression and inflation "do not reflect any universal desire for lower incomes or higher prices ... The hearts and minds and motives and habits of millions of people who participate in a segregated society may or may not bear close correspondence with the massive results that collectively they can generate." Now that's a strike to social change efforts! (Other economists have taken this issue a little forward, and showed that the individual choice of giving up on one egg would decrease the total production by 0.91 eggs. More details could be found in Doing Good Better by William MacAskill and Expected Utility, Contributory Causation, and Vegetarianism by Gaverick Matheny)
As pointed out earlier, it is exceedingly hard to tell what's behind individual decisions just by analysing aggregate phenomena. Certain configurations though may be mechanically produced by playing around with sets of preferences, as Schelling does in the classical simulation of neighbourhood segregation of pennies and dimes. From an initial, almost balanced disposition of dimes and pennies, assigning fairly human preferences as 'staying with more than 3/4 of the same type, or leave' turns the board to an equilibrium which is evidently clustered. Playing around with the coins will show that a distinction between integrative and separative 'behaviours' is almost impossible to draw.
Finally, a quite intriguing poke at randomness: imagine a binary division scenario with complementarity, one among the features laid down at the beginning - sex: people would be able to choose in advance the sex of one's child. Most would likely prefer a 50-50 distribution, but individual choice may be driven by:
1) wanting a boy or a girl, while badly wanting the 50-50 population ratio;
2) wanting a child of the scarcer sex for some advantages;
3) wanting a child of the preponderant sex for equally conceivable advantages.
In such a scenario, not everybody will turn out to be happy. "The binary illustration is a vivid reminder that a good organizational remedy for severely nonoptimal individual choices is simply not to have the choice - to be victims (beneficiaries) of randomization - and thus to need no organization."
Schelling warns the reader that every depicted function is nothing more than what it is - a model, an ideal scenario, free from its subtle, but no less important features. Schelling's functions aim at "illustrating the kind of analysis that is needed, some of the phenomena to be anticipated, and some of the questions worth asking"; typically, they involve two-person scenarios as the notorious prisoner's dilemma, or they focus on broader dynamics where the object of study is equally 'simple' - behavioural contrapositions between blacks and whites, rich and poor, young and old, etc.
Given that no underlying principle could be extracted from such a broad array of phenomena, Schelling lays out an interesting overview of macro-features: one is when phenomena occur in pairs as the previous dichotomies do, one when populations are guided by a principle of conservation (for example: no matter how hard you try, you can never get rid of the worst 10% employees, for the statistical feature of being 'the worst' is independent of the members of the system - the only solution will be to close your office), or move through a semi-closed system; Schelling then talks about complementary population sets as the two sexes or two 'races' (Schelling writes his papers in the Seventies, when racial issues were prominent in the US), and that "the independent variable in a system of behaviour often proves t be the sum of the dependent variables in a system", and "people react to a totality of which they are part".
Famous "critical mass" phenomena are just part of the family. One of the funny things about them, is that "even if one of the outcomes is unanimously chosen, we cannot infer that it is preferred from the fact that it is universally chosen." To appreciate such an intuitive statement, graphics are an extremely useful tool, even though a little unwelcome for those who don't like to see reality through straight lines.
S-shaped lines do help a lot, though. In "Thermostats, Lemons, and Other Families of Models" Schelling analyses how different scenarios may play out depending on which metrics we choose and act from to define phenomena. "If absolute numbers are what matter ... the activity is likely to be self-sustaining in a large group but not in a small one." Think of a typical dynamic, where people would go to that bar only if n. people are hanging out.
"If it is proportions that matter ... there is the possibility of dividing or separating populations." Speaking of language accent or fashion, for example, separating a population would have the effect of reshaping proportions, and make some behaviours more or less easily adopted.
An ethical and much actual note comes from the discussion of commons. Social contracts are sometimes blamed for not really being able to solve our problems. Schelling shows that such view is superficial, and that in the end having rules, being good or bad, is better than none.
In a classic problem of electrical overload, that half of the population which undergoes voluntary restriction may well be angry at the free riders. Nevertheless, even though free riders are better off than the other half, "the cooperative half may be better off for having found a way to make themselves cut back in unison." Schelling here maybe suggests that 'being better off' may not be just to exert one's individual choice unrestrainedly; there is a value, though less individual and thus less tangible and measurable, in the ability of acting 'in unison'. And that ability, I'd further suggest, may well come in hand in the future.
Speaking of segregation and its dynamics, Schelling strongly opposes the view that such aggregate phenomenon has any social efficiency. Just as romance and marriage influence the aggregate genetic treasure that we'll bring on, just as depression and inflation "do not reflect any universal desire for lower incomes or higher prices ... The hearts and minds and motives and habits of millions of people who participate in a segregated society may or may not bear close correspondence with the massive results that collectively they can generate." Now that's a strike to social change efforts! (Other economists have taken this issue a little forward, and showed that the individual choice of giving up on one egg would decrease the total production by 0.91 eggs. More details could be found in Doing Good Better by William MacAskill and Expected Utility, Contributory Causation, and Vegetarianism by Gaverick Matheny)
As pointed out earlier, it is exceedingly hard to tell what's behind individual decisions just by analysing aggregate phenomena. Certain configurations though may be mechanically produced by playing around with sets of preferences, as Schelling does in the classical simulation of neighbourhood segregation of pennies and dimes. From an initial, almost balanced disposition of dimes and pennies, assigning fairly human preferences as 'staying with more than 3/4 of the same type, or leave' turns the board to an equilibrium which is evidently clustered. Playing around with the coins will show that a distinction between integrative and separative 'behaviours' is almost impossible to draw.
Finally, a quite intriguing poke at randomness: imagine a binary division scenario with complementarity, one among the features laid down at the beginning - sex: people would be able to choose in advance the sex of one's child. Most would likely prefer a 50-50 distribution, but individual choice may be driven by:
1) wanting a boy or a girl, while badly wanting the 50-50 population ratio;
2) wanting a child of the scarcer sex for some advantages;
3) wanting a child of the preponderant sex for equally conceivable advantages.
In such a scenario, not everybody will turn out to be happy. "The binary illustration is a vivid reminder that a good organizational remedy for severely nonoptimal individual choices is simply not to have the choice - to be victims (beneficiaries) of randomization - and thus to need no organization."
April 12, 2023
If your problem is that there is too much traffic, you are part of the problem.
There is the unilateral process of believing something about people, behaving toward them in accordance with those beliefs, and causing the beliefs to be confirmed.
though planning is often associated with control, the crucial element is often coordination. People need to do the right things at the right time in relation to what others are doing. In fact, the most ingenious piece of planning ever introduced into society may have been our common scheme for synchronizing clocks and calendars. I do not set my watch at zero every morning on arising and let it run through the day on the decimal system; I have a watch just like yours, one that I coordinate with everybody else's at remarkably little cost. And I know nobody who cheats.
what we have is people responding to an environment that consists of people who are responding to each other. As people respond they change the environments of the people they associate with, and cause further responses. Everybody's presence affects, if only slightly, the environment of everybody else.
There is the unilateral process of believing something about people, behaving toward them in accordance with those beliefs, and causing the beliefs to be confirmed.
though planning is often associated with control, the crucial element is often coordination. People need to do the right things at the right time in relation to what others are doing. In fact, the most ingenious piece of planning ever introduced into society may have been our common scheme for synchronizing clocks and calendars. I do not set my watch at zero every morning on arising and let it run through the day on the decimal system; I have a watch just like yours, one that I coordinate with everybody else's at remarkably little cost. And I know nobody who cheats.
what we have is people responding to an environment that consists of people who are responding to each other. As people respond they change the environments of the people they associate with, and cause further responses. Everybody's presence affects, if only slightly, the environment of everybody else.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 14, 2022
Unless you really have the patience (or background) to painstakingly read through formulae and tedious explanations of abstract ideas, I recommend skimming this one. At times it reads like a dry, academic lecture. His examples of some of the economic phenomena he describes were too uninteresting and mundane to keep my full attention (for example, the nuisance of receiving Christmas cards or the different ways people could choose between one of two dining rooms). The most interesting chapters were on segregation and genetic engineering. I’d recommend picking up this book just to read them. Interestingly, had he used examples such as those throughout the rest of the book it would have been a much easier and enjoyable read.
April 22, 2019
Anyone interested in everyday behavior and the social sciences should definitely pick this up and read through the first couple of chapters. But the book is a bit all over the place. Sometimes it feels like there are too many examples; other times, not enough. The framework Schelling tries to set up can be hard to follow. Nevertheless, the big ideas in the book are eye-opening and the examples are drawn from everyday life.
Whether you read it in its entirety or just the first couple chapters and skim the rest, I imagine you'll look at social patterns in the world with a slightly different perspective.
Whether you read it in its entirety or just the first couple chapters and skim the rest, I imagine you'll look at social patterns in the world with a slightly different perspective.
December 21, 2018
I liked the topic very much: how our local decisions may have global consequences. The book is aging but I found it very relevant.
As I understand it, this book is actually an introduction to Game Theory, a topic sometimes approached quite formally with many formulas and Greek symbols. Here the text is in plain English, but I found the content difficult and I’d have welcomed more pictures and, I must admit, a formula from time to time. I’d advise pen and paper to get the most of the text.
As I understand it, this book is actually an introduction to Game Theory, a topic sometimes approached quite formally with many formulas and Greek symbols. Here the text is in plain English, but I found the content difficult and I’d have welcomed more pictures and, I must admit, a formula from time to time. I’d advise pen and paper to get the most of the text.
November 13, 2020
Interesting book. Did a great job contextualizing economics for the layperson.
Obviously, this book would do better through the medium of a lecture. Following the graphs and numbers he invokes is difficult in the nearly totally written format. Lots of flipping back pages for prior information and difficulty following variables, graphs, and the math throughout.
Obviously, this book would do better through the medium of a lecture. Following the graphs and numbers he invokes is difficult in the nearly totally written format. Lots of flipping back pages for prior information and difficulty following variables, graphs, and the math throughout.
January 7, 2021
A classic presentation of how the activities and behavior of the individual impact the larger entity
Describes socio-economic models that reflect "critical mass" situations that mirror the cyclic behavior of population groups
One of the most famous portions of Schelling's book is his discussion on integration/segregation
Describes socio-economic models that reflect "critical mass" situations that mirror the cyclic behavior of population groups
One of the most famous portions of Schelling's book is his discussion on integration/segregation
March 21, 2024
Useful book for explaining a intuitive concept mathematically. Only issue is he goes full boredom for about 50 pages talking about choosing sex of children and then an overlong breakdown of binary choices. It explains how things can be without anyone actually consciously choosing that specific outcome.
November 2, 2019
Libro classico ma datato. Puó essere considerato l’antenato di Freakonomics.
Notevole invece il capitolo finale (aggiunto nell’edizione del 2006) con il discorso per il Nobel relativo al (non) utilizzo delle armi nucleari.
Notevole invece il capitolo finale (aggiunto nell’edizione del 2006) con il discorso per il Nobel relativo al (non) utilizzo delle armi nucleari.
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February 2, 2020Interesting book - although personally i disliked the use of graphs when (imo) they weren't necessary. Almost as if the author tried to make the scenarios a lot more mathematical then it needed to be. But I enjoyed the chapters on tipping and other social phenomena.
January 7, 2023
Maybe a little heavy on visualizations towards the end, but that's probably necessary for understanding the subject, though it does make it harder to listen to. I may need to reread later and go back very the graphs.
June 18, 2017
Interesting take on aggregate decision making. I would have liked if he had proposed more ways to influence the group for the highest social effect.
November 14, 2017
Chapter 7 (binary choice multi-person prisoner's dilemma) is enough to make you buy this book. The Nobel lecture on deterrence has a nostalgic feel to it.
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