{"id":7943,"date":"2020-03-15T12:11:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-15T16:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=7943"},"modified":"2023-04-12T11:51:59","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T15:51:59","slug":"what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-are-economic-incentives\/\">incentives in economics<\/a>? Are there different kinds of incentives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the book <em>Freakonomics, <\/em>Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt explain what incentives are when it comes to economics. They break down the three different types of incentives and provide examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep reading to learn about incentives from <em>Freakonomics.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-are-incentives\"><strong>What Are Incentives?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Freakonomics | Book Summary\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bPvu6jJ5PHY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>At their most basic, <strong>incentives are stimuli that encourage \u201cgood\u201d behavior and discourage \u201cbad\u201d behavior. <\/strong>(Think of how you might give a dog a treat for sitting when she\u2019s told to). As we\u2019ll see throughout <em>Freakonomics<\/em>, incentives are a key driver of human behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Incentives create an entire mental framework in which human beings think and act. Understanding them enables us to better understand the choices people make. Choices that seem perplexing on the surface often look perfectly rational in light of hidden incentives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-economics-is-the-study-of-incentives\"><strong>Economics is the Study of Incentives<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are <strong>three main kinds <\/strong>of incentives:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-economic-incentives\">Economic Incentives<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the type we\u2019re most familiar with. Economic incentives provide tangible rewards to people for engaging in productive behavior and penalties on people for destructive behavior. Getting a raise at work for exceeding expectations, a speeding ticket, or even being sentenced to prison (which deprives one of one\u2019s freedom and livelihood), are all economic incentives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-social-incentives\">Social Incentives<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Social incentives are rooted in our natural desire to be looked upon favorably by others. On the flip side, we fear being shamed and looked upon <em>dis<\/em>favorably by our peers. To harness social incentives, many jurisdictions in the US have started publishing the names and photos of people arrested for prostitution-related offences\u2014likely a far stronger deterrent than a $500 fine!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-moral-incentives\">Moral Incentives<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of us want to do what we consider to be \u201cright,\u201d and avoid doing things that we consider to be \u201cwrong.\u201d Thus, there is a powerful <em>moral <\/em>incentive against committing crimes or engaging in any behavior that causes harm to others. Uniquely, <strong>moral incentives are self-enforced<\/strong>\u2014only we as individuals can hold ourselves accountable on moral grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-incentive-design-is-critical\"><strong>Incentive Design is Critical<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Because incentives are effective, economists are fond of devising incentive-based solutions to real-world problems. Unfortunately, <strong>people acting in bad faith will always try to \u201cgame\u201d or abuse the incentive to gain an advantage<\/strong>. <strong>Poorly designed incentive systems can backfire completely <\/strong>and produce unintended, destructive behavior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Therefore,<strong> incentives need to be well-designed.<\/strong> Properly designed incentives promote the intended behavior without allowing people to profit from unintended behaviors. We\u2019ll cover three key examples of how well-meaning incentives caused <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/unexpected-consequences\/\">unintended consequences<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-example-parents-late-to-daycare-pickup\">Example: Parents Late to Daycare Pickup<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A day-care center requires parents to pick up their kids by 4PM. But inevitably some parents are late. This is costly\u2014the kids are anxious, and the teachers have to stay late to watch the kids. How do you fix this with incentives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s a simple fix: fine a parent each time they\u2019re late. Theoretically, <strong>this increases the punishment to a parent for being late, which should decrease late arrivals.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A pair of economists put this to the test a ta group of day-care centers in Israel. The rule: any parent over ten minutes late would pay $3 per child for each late arrival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The result was counterintuitive\u2014<strong>the number of late pickups <em>doubled<\/em><\/strong>. This is odd, since adding an extra fine should decrease pickups! What happened?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It turns out that <strong>adding a fine changed the nature of the relationship<\/strong>. A social\/moral incentive was <em>converted<\/em> into an economic incentive. Previously with no fine, parents were held to social standards to be on time (\u201cif you\u2019re a good parent and a thoughtful person, you\u2019ll be on time\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But when the day-care center added dollars to the mix, it changed the implicit agreement, making the calculation financial, rather than social\/moral. It seemed as though the day-care center were saying, \u201cit\u2019s fine for you to be late, as long as you pay $3 each time.\u201d Parents could weigh the value of their time and decide $3 was well worth being late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This illustrates the tricky, counter-intuitive nature of incentives\u2014<strong>well-meaning incentives can have unintended consequences<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(You might suspect that $3 isn\u2019t enough, and that a higher fee like $50 would be more effective. This is likely right, but it might also increase resentment and cause parents to switch to another day-care.)<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are incentives in economics? Are there different kinds of incentives? In the book Freakonomics, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt explain what incentives are when it comes to economics. They break down the three different types of incentives and provide examples. Keep reading to learn about incentives from Freakonomics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[80],"class_list":["post-7943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","tag-freakonomics","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What are incentives? How do economic incentives work? Learn the definition of incentives in our summary of Freakonomics.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What are incentives? How do economic incentives work? Learn the definition of incentives in our summary of Freakonomics.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-15T16:11:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-04-12T15:51:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"317\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Allen Cheng\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Allen Cheng\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Allen Cheng\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e9c1cecc340502045489d4c4e6f4a877\"},\"headline\":\"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-03-15T16:11:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-04-12T15:51:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/\"},\"wordCount\":727,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Freakonomics\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Economics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/\",\"name\":\"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-03-15T16:11:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-04-12T15:51:59+00:00\",\"description\":\"What are incentives? How do economic incentives work? Learn the definition of incentives in our summary of Freakonomics.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg\",\"width\":480,\"height\":317},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"description\":\"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"width\":500,\"height\":74,\"caption\":\"Shortform Books\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e9c1cecc340502045489d4c4e6f4a877\",\"name\":\"Allen Cheng\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/658f486a7308ee9a8cffe118baa58e29b0ef902cb29203b65e033a7c49f06a2a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/658f486a7308ee9a8cffe118baa58e29b0ef902cb29203b65e033a7c49f06a2a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Allen Cheng\"},\"description\":\"Allen Cheng is the founder of Shortform. He has a passion for non-fiction books (having read 200+ and counting) and is on a mission to make the world's best ideas more accessible to everyone. He reads broadly, covering a wide range of subjects including finance, management, health, and society. Allen graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and attended medical training at the MD\/PhD program at Harvard and MIT. Before Shortform, he co-founded PrepScholar, an online education company.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/allen\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics - Shortform Books","description":"What are incentives? How do economic incentives work? Learn the definition of incentives in our summary of Freakonomics.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics","og_description":"What are incentives? How do economic incentives work? Learn the definition of incentives in our summary of Freakonomics.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/","og_site_name":"Shortform Books","article_published_time":"2020-03-15T16:11:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-04-12T15:51:59+00:00","og_image":[{"width":480,"height":317,"url":"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Allen Cheng","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Allen Cheng","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/"},"author":{"name":"Allen Cheng","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e9c1cecc340502045489d4c4e6f4a877"},"headline":"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics","datePublished":"2020-03-15T16:11:00+00:00","dateModified":"2023-04-12T15:51:59+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/"},"wordCount":727,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg","keywords":["Freakonomics"],"articleSection":["Economics"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/","name":"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics - Shortform Books","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg","datePublished":"2020-03-15T16:11:00+00:00","dateModified":"2023-04-12T15:51:59+00:00","description":"What are incentives? How do economic incentives work? Learn the definition of incentives in our summary of Freakonomics.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg","width":480,"height":317},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-incentive-meaning-and-definition-economics\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What Is an Incentive? Explanation From Freakonomics"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","name":"Shortform Books","description":"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Shortform Books","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","width":500,"height":74,"caption":"Shortform Books"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e9c1cecc340502045489d4c4e6f4a877","name":"Allen Cheng","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/658f486a7308ee9a8cffe118baa58e29b0ef902cb29203b65e033a7c49f06a2a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/658f486a7308ee9a8cffe118baa58e29b0ef902cb29203b65e033a7c49f06a2a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Allen Cheng"},"description":"Allen Cheng is the founder of Shortform. He has a passion for non-fiction books (having read 200+ and counting) and is on a mission to make the world's best ideas more accessible to everyone. He reads broadly, covering a wide range of subjects including finance, management, health, and society. Allen graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and attended medical training at the MD\/PhD program at Harvard and MIT. Before Shortform, he co-founded PrepScholar, an online education company.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/allen\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/freakonomics_incentive.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7943"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98945,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7943\/revisions\/98945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}