Another’s wasted investment is as disturbing as one’s own
Ball-game theory
THAT human beings often continue to pour money into bad projects because they have already invested in them and cannot bring themselves to lose that investment is well known. Indeed the sunk-cost fallacy, as this phenomenon is called, is frequently cited as an example of people failing to behave in the “rational” way that classical economics suggests they should.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Ball-game theory”
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