From a standard economic perspective, gifts are a waste of money. Imagine that you invite me over for dinner one day and I decide to spend $50 on a bottle of wine. There are a bunch of problems: To start, I am not sure what wine you would like the most. And besides, maybe you’d prefer something else, like a book, a DVD, or a blender. This means that the bottle of wine that cost me $50 might be worth, at most, $25 to you. (more…)

After 10 years at MIT, this is my first official day at Duke, and it is wonderful to be here. MIT was wonderful in many ways but it was time to look for new adventures and I am delighted that I found a new home at Duke.

Duke is also where I got my PhD, and coming back feels like being a student again. The one odd thing about this move is that my advisers and teachers from my PhD years will now be my colleagues, and I don’t think I will ever be able to see them in this new role. I think that advisers are a bit like parents—they are in this role forever. But feeling like a student again is a wonderful thing. I get to feel caring, warmth, and I get to look forward to many discussions over coffee with my new colleagues.

It is wonderful to be back.

Dear Dan,
In 1996 at the age of 50 my wife and I built a new house, which contained everything we always said we wanted to have. It was larger than we really needed since the children had grown and left home.

During the 6 to 8 month building period, we continually made choices and decisions that led to the spending of large amounts of money. In fact, when you are building a house and negotiating with builders and suppliers spending in the thousands becomes a normal part of life. (more…)

So this is it. We are moving into a new house in a few weeks, now the question is what we should fix, and to what degree …

Consider the following scenario:
You have two cars, one is a very inefficient van (giving you on average 5 MPG) and one is a relatively efficient sedan (giving you on average 20 MPG). Due to your work and obligations you have to drive each of them the same distance every month. (more…)

I recently came across this article in the New York Times that describes a new movement among doctors and hospitals to admit their mistakes rather than continue with the more traditional approach of denying and defending them. As a result, the article suggests, these hospitals are seeing a decline in lawsuits and legal costs. I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that in these hospitals the patients are being treated with an approach that is usually reserved for meaningful, social relationships.
(more…)

Can it be that we focus too much on gas prices? Relative to other increases in expenses, I suspect that we do!

Given that we recently celebrated our 10 year anniversary, I started wondering about what can predict long-term compatibility …

Reactions are welcome.

I am going to try to have phone “office hours” with the help of Learn from my life

I am not sure sure how it will work out but I am looking forward to trying it out. If you have the time please join us…

Yesterday was Sumi’s (my lovely wife) and my 10 year wedding anniversary.

It took me a while to figure out what to do for this event and at the end I decided on two things: First, I booked us a night at the same bed & breakfast where we got married 10 years ago. This was a slightly risky move because there was a chance that the place will not be as wonderful or romantic as we remember, and this will spoil the wonderful memories we have from our wedding day. Luckily this was not the case, and the place was just as wonderful and romantic as we remembered. (more…)