Talks and Media

As an academic, I routinely present scholarly seminars. I do not list these here since they are simply too numerous. If you attended one of my talks and are interested in getting hold of my slides including slides from any of my courses, then please e-mail me at my University of Auckland email address. I am happy to share. Here, I only list talks of a non-technical nature given to a wider audience. I do a lot of interviews and rarely keep track of all of them. A selection appears below.

November 2023:

Talked to “The Detail” with Tom Kitchin of RNZ about the anti-trust lawsuit against Google. Report available here. Full interview available here.

Talked to Counter Culture with Maree Buscke of Reality Check Radio about why Labour lost the election. Caution: Long interview. Here is just my part of the show.

Talked to Paul Brennan of Reality Check Radio about NZ Covid Response. Audio clip available here.

August 2023: RNZ interview regarding the relative efficacy of pay cuts and layoffs in a recession. During tough economic times businesses and firms looking to reduce costs are usually happier to lay workers off. But a recent survey by research firm Talbot Mills found the majority of people would rather struggling firms cut pay than slash workforce. I talked to RNZ about my work in this area and why this finding is not surprising.

January 2023: I gave a seminar based on the book at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The talk was covered widely in the popular media in Bangladesh including leading dailies such as Prothom Alo, Desh Rupantar, The Financial Express, The Business Standard and many others.

September 2022: Talked to RNZ’s “The Panel” about the importance of trust in the workplace and between employers and employees. Audio clip here.

July 23, 2022: I presented a keynote talk based on my book “Nudged into lockdown?” at the ACT Party New Zealand Real Change Event held in Christchurch on July 23, 2022. See a PDF version of the slides from my talk here.

December, 2021: I talked about some of my work on political ideology, trust and corruption with Aiden Singh for the Social Science Encyclopedia.

April 13, 2021: Gave a talk about cognitive biases and asset bubbles to member of the Society of Technical Analysts NZ (STANZ). These are the slides for the talk. Here is a recording of the talk.

April 8, 2021: Seminar delivered to Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School. Slides from talk: “Time in Office and the Changing Gender Gap in Honesty“. Here is a Youtube recording of the talk.

February 21, 2021: Here are the slides for my talk at the Second Covid Plan B Science and Policy Symposium held on February 13, 2021. Video of this talk.

In December 2020, I was invited by Amity University in India as a distinguished guest and speaker. I gave a talk on “Decision Making in Pandemics” based on my forthcoming books “Behavioural Economics and Experiments” and “Uncommon Sense”. If you are interested, you can watch this talk on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftrU3rzy0BM.

In October 2020, I gave a talk on Dual Foundations of Political Ideology at Harvard Kennedy School Center for International Development based on work I am doing with colleagues at Auckland with support from the Marsden Fund. This talk is designed for a general audience and should be accessible to a large group of people.

In August 2020, I gave a talk on “Decision Making in Pandemics” as part of a symposium on the response to Covid-19. This link will take you to the video of the presentation. Originally, this event was scheduled to be held in the Banquet Hall of Parliament, hosted by MP David Seymour. But, due to a lock down in Auckland at the time, I ended up delivering this talk remotely. If interested, here is the Programme for the Symposium. This link takes you to the symposium page and this link takes you to the Covid Plan B Page, which provides an overview of the work we have done in providing an alternative perspective to the received wisdom on the Covid-19 pandemic.

In November 2019, I gave a talk on “The Economics of Fairness” as part of the University of Auckland’s Spring Week on Campus. I also gave a version of this talk to the Annual Meeting of the New Zealand Commerce and Economics Teachers Association in September 2019.

Media Coverage

I write extensively for the media on the basis of my own research findings. In fact, I prefer to write things up on my own rather than put out press releases in order to ensure greater accuracy in what gets written up. Much of this is available on the page on “Popular Writings”. Nevertheless, a lot of my work does make its way to the popular media frequently. These are too numerous to keep track of and list. Here is a selection of some of these.

Media Appearances

Media coverage

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