There is this very, very old puzzle/observation in economics about the lawyer who spends an hour volunteering at the soup kitchen, instead of working an extra hour and donating the money to hire someone to work for five hours at the soup kitchen.
Agreed with Lumifer on “puzzle.” This is why behavioral economics arose in the first place.
There might be a case made that the lawyer doesn’t realize this and is caught in a cached pattern of thinking. However, it could also be the case that the lawyer wants to buy hedons by working in the soup kitchen and getting warm fuzzies from that.
Not efficient.
A puzzle?
Economists tend to call a mismatch between their model and reality “a puzzle”. Most other people call that “a failure of the model”.
Agreed with Lumifer on “puzzle.” This is why behavioral economics arose in the first place.
There might be a case made that the lawyer doesn’t realize this and is caught in a cached pattern of thinking. However, it could also be the case that the lawyer wants to buy hedons by working in the soup kitchen and getting warm fuzzies from that.