I wrote limericks!

I somehow stumbled upon the limericks page of Dr. Mesterton-Gibbons, a mathematics professor at my school. He has been doing a limerick of the month for years, and his online collection reaches back to 1996. While looking at this I realized I should be working on behavioral economics, so I naturally decided to write limericks about it instead.

One should note that there is (apparently) a strict rhyming scheme to limericks which I have completely ignored. That disclaimer being given, here are my efforts:

On shifting reference points:

A lottery player who had won

Said “finally, I’m in for some fun”

But while his wealth lifted

His reference point shifted

So his u­₂ over u equaled one.

On mental heuristics:

So many shortcuts in our thought

With errors our results are wrought

Heuristics are okay

In your day-to-day

As long as the President you are not.

On loss aversion:

Jen suffered such aversion to losses

When choosing her boys and her bosses

That at 34 she found

After looking around

That this was half of her trouble’s causes.

On prospect theory:

The model of utility expected

Was aged and quite well respected

On it we had built

A sandcastle of silt

‘til Kahneman conjectured we prospected.

On altruism:

Economists modeled humans a la carte

Thinking souls wouldn’t fit on the chart

But dictators show

What little we know

About the depth of the human heart.

On a Loewenstein paper:

Economists yearned for a pure thinker

As feelers force modelers to tinker

But as Loewenstein alludes

More predictable moods

May belong to the visceral rum drinker.