Blog: What a Phone Scam Taught Me About the Limits of Thinking Like an Economist

After a good laugh over falling for a phone app scam, economics professor Li Jingkui acknowledges that he should have caught on faster to the con as scammers’ tactics involve simple economics. He then wonders if knowing more about human psychology would have been more helpful.

Among people of different professions, scammers are the most well-versed in economics. But they are not like economists who refute game theory, econometrics and big data, or the emerging field of behavioral economics. They do not belong to any school. In fact, they dabble in all schools of economic thought, be they mainstream or emerging, and they are very receptive to using all kinds of economic tools as well. My recent experience deepened this understanding of them.