Books like Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much

01

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · Psychology

Thinking, Fast and Slow is Daniel Kahneman's account of the two cognitive systems that govern human thought.

Shares decision-making and behavioral economics with Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much.

02

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein · Economics

Nudge is Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's argument that the way choices are presented — the default option, the order of items, the framing of a question — powerfully shapes what people decide, often more than their own stated preferences.

Shares decision-making and behavioral economics with Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much.

03

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

Barry Schwartz · Psychology

Barry Schwartz argues that the expansion of consumer choice in wealthy societies has not produced the freedom and happiness it promised.

Both dig into decision-making.

04

Poverty, by America

Matthew Desmond · Economics

Poverty, by America is Matthew Desmond's follow-up to Evicted, and it makes a more explicit and polemical argument: poverty in the United States is not a natural condition or a problem of insufficient resources.

Both dig into poverty.

05

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky · Science

Behave is Robert Sapolsky's attempt to explain why humans do what they do — the violence, the altruism, the tribalism, the heroism — by working through every layer of biology that contributes to a single act.

A kindred psychology read.

06

Dollars and Sense

Dan Ariely · Psychology

Dollars and Sense is Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler's examination of why people consistently make bad financial decisions even when they have the information and intention to do otherwise.

Shares decision-making and behavioral economics with Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much.

07

Mind Over Money

Claudia Hammond · Psychology

Mind Over Money is Claudia Hammond's survey of the research on how people actually think about, feel about, and make decisions with money — which turns out to be considerably less rational than economic theory assumes.

Shares decision-making and behavioral economics with Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much.

08

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics

Richard H. Thaler · Psychology

Richard Thaler is one of the founders of behavioral economics, the field that took the anomalies in standard economic theory seriously rather than dismissing them as noise.

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09

Predictably Irrational

Dan Ariely · Psychology

Predictably Irrational is Dan Ariely's examination of how humans make decisions that are consistently, systematically irrational — not random or arbitrary, but irrational in ways that follow patterns.

Shares decision-making and behavioral economics with Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much.

10

The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

Dan Ariely · Psychology

Dan Ariely is a behavioral economist at Duke who studies irrational behavior, and this book applies that framework to a question most people prefer not to examine too closely: why do people cheat?

Shares decision-making and behavioral economics with Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much.

11

The Art of Thinking Clearly

Rolf Dobelli · Psychology

Rolf Dobelli is a Swiss entrepreneur and novelist who wrote a series of short newspaper columns on cognitive biases, later collected and expanded into this book.

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12

The Undoing Project

Michael Lewis · Psychology

Michael Lewis came to this subject sideways.

Shares decision-making and behavioral economics with Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much.