Is this economics?

["Gunnar Tomasson" <gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

According to The New York Times. this is how Nobel Prizes are won in Economic Science:

In an article published in Science in 1981, they reported results of a study in which 152 students were given hypothetical choices for trying to save 600 people from a disease. Using one strategy, exactly 200 people could be saved for certain. Using another, there would be a one-third chance that everyone would live, and a two-thirds chance that no one would be saved. Seventy-two percent of the subjects, preferring the less risky strategy, chose the first option.

But when the researchers presented the same choice with different wording ? either 400 people would die for sure or there would be a one-third chance that no one would die ? only 22 percent chose the first option.

Professor Smith's work formalized laboratory techniques for studying economic decision-making, with a focus on bargaining and auctions. The Nobel committee cited him for demonstrating how market institutions, such as the type of auction used in a sale, could affect participants' behavior.

Comment:

Are these folks serious?

Gunnar