Spent

A leading evolutionary psychologist probes the hidden instincts behind our working, shopping, and spending Evolutionary psychology-the compelling science of human nature-has clarified the prehistoric origins of human behavior and influenced many fields ranging from economics to personal relationships. In Spent Geoffrey Miller applies this revolutionary science's principles to a new domain: the sensual wonderland of marketing and status seeking that we call American consumer culture. Starting with the basic notion that the goods and services we buy unconsciously advertise our biological potential as mates and friends, Miller examines the hidden factors that dictate our choices in everything from lipstick to cars, from the magazines we read to the music we listen to. With humor and insight, Miller analyzes an array of product choices and deciphers what our decisions say about ourselves, giving us access to a new way of understanding-and improving-our behaviors. Like Freakonomics or The Tipping Point, Spent is a bold and revelatory book that illuminates the unseen logic behind the chaos of consumerism and suggests new ways we can become happier consumers and more responsible citizens.

An innovative exploration of self-reported happiness, referred to as subjective well-being, observed through the lens of time-use.

As part of a long-standing collaboration on nuclear nonproliferation, the National Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences held a joint workshop in Moscow in 2003 on the scientific aspects of an international radioactive disposal site in Russia. The passage of Russian laws permitting the importation and storage of high-level radioactive material (primarily spent nuclear fuel from reactors) has engendered interest from a number of foreign governments, including the U.S., in exploring the possibility of transferring material to Russia on a temporary or permanent basis. The workshop focused on the environmental aspects of the general location and characteristics of a possible storage site, transportation to and within the site, containers for transportation and storage, inventory and accountability, audits and inspections, and handling technologies.

How cash transfers made to women are used has important implications for models of household behavior and for the design of social programs. In this paper, the authors use the randomized introduction of an unconditional cash transfer to poor women in rural Ecuador to analyze the effect of transfers on the food Engel curve. There are two main findings. First, the authors show that households randomly assigned to receive Bono de Desarrollo Humano (BDH) transfers have a significantly higher food share in expenditures than those that were randomly assigned to the control group. Second, they show that the rising food share among BDH beneficiaries is found among households that have both adult males and females, but not among households that only have adult females. Bargaining power between men and women is likely to be important in mixed-adult households, but not among female-only households, where there are no men to bargain with. Finally, the authors show that within mixed-adult households, program effects are only significant in households in which the initial bargaining capacity of women was likely to be weak. This pattern of results is consistent with an increase in the bargaining power of women in households that received BDH transfers.

When most Christians think about money, they think about what money can do for them now, here in this life. But attitudes about money have an eternal aspect—and author Russ Crosson, CEO of Ronald Blue & Co. and a highly respected investment advisor—offers readers a look how to manage money with eternity in view. They'll learn the difference between prosperity—the accumulation of goods on this earth, and posterity—the heritage left to the generations that follow. Readers will discover a new way of thinking about money, about their life's work—and about how to get a higher return on life itself. Included are: A new understanding of work Training up a child Adding posterity time to busy schedules Four major financial decisions that affect eternity Pros and cons of buying versus renting a home "Without the information in this book, your budget may be balanced, but unwise—your bookkeeping may be timely, but reflect only temporal values. This is the book to read first, before any others, for the renewing of your financial mind." Bruce Wilkinson, author of The Prayer of Jabez