Behavioral Economics with Fexingo: Decision Making, Bias, and How People Really Spend cover art

Behavioral Economics with Fexingo: Decision Making, Bias, and How People Really Spend

Behavioral Economics with Fexingo: Decision Making, Bias, and How People Really Spend

By: Fexingo
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What really drives the way people spend, save, and invest? Behavioral economics challenges the textbook assumption of the rational actor by revealing the systematic biases and mental shortcuts that shape every financial decision. In this show, Lucas and Luna sit down at the research library to dissect the experimental evidence, from Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory to Thaler's nudge framework, and test those findings against real-world pricing, marketing, and policy design. They walk through specific studies — the endowment effect in housing markets, the sunk-cost fallacy in subscription pricing, the framing of credit-card interest rates — and ask what those experiments imply for a consumer choosing a mortgage or a CFO setting a price. Lucas brings the investigative journalist's rigor, pressing for the exact sample sizes, replication rates, and alternative interpretations; Luna pushes back with the practitioner's instinct, asking whether a bias that shows up in a lab actually translates to a shopping cart on Amazon. The listener is not a beginner: you already know that people aren't perfectly rational. What you want is the nuance — the boundary conditions where biases flip, the studies that fail to replicate, and the ethical line between a nudge and a manipulation. Each episode leaves one open question hanging: if we know these biases exist, should the government regulate against them, or is that a cure worse than the disease? #BehavioralEconomics #ProspectTheory #Nudge #Kahneman #Thaler #EndowmentEffect #SunkCost #Framing #Bias #DecisionMaking #ConsumerBehavior #BehavioralFinance #Economics #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #ResearchLibrary #PolicyDesign #CognitiveScience Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo© 2026 Fexingo. All rights reserved. Economics
Episodes
  • Why Your Brain Treats a Price Anchor as a Bargain

    Why Your Brain Treats a Price Anchor as a Bargain
    Jul 3 2026
    In this episode of Behavioral Economics with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore the anchoring effect — how a single initial price can warp your perception of value for everything that follows. They drill into a famous 1974 study by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, where participants spun a wheel of fortune and then guessed the percentage of African nations in the UN. The wheel was rigged — but it didn't matter. Higher spins produced higher guesses. The same mechanism works in salary negotiations, real estate listings, and even menu design. Lucas and Luna discuss why a $5,000 watch makes a $2,000 watch feel like a steal, how car dealers use anchor pricing to make add-ons seem cheap, and why you should never be the first to throw out a number in a negotiation. They also touch on the practical takeaway: anchors work even when you know they're anchors. The episode closes with a forward-looking question about whether digital pricing — dynamic and contextless — might weaken the power of the anchor. #AnchoringEffect #BehavioralEconomics #Kahneman #Tversky #PriceAnchoring #CognitiveBias #DecisionMaking #Negotiation #ValuePerception #Economics #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #ChoiceArchitecture #PricingStrategy #PsychologyOfMoney #BehavioralFinance #Heuristics #Marketing Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo
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    8 mins
  • Why Your Brain Treats Cashback as Income Not a Discount

    Why Your Brain Treats Cashback as Income Not a Discount
    Jul 3 2026
    In this episode of Behavioral Economics with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore the 'cashback illusion' — why people treat cashback rewards as income rather than a price reduction, even when the math is identical. Using a 2025 experiment from the University of Chicago showing that consumers spend more freely with cashback than with an equivalent upfront discount, they unpack the mental accounting error that retailers exploit. They also discuss how credit card companies design rewards to feel like a bonus, not a rebate, and what that means for your spending psychology. A natural donation segment ties the conversation to listener support. #CashbackIllusion #MentalAccounting #BehavioralEconomics #ConsumerPsychology #UniversityOfChicago #RewardsPrograms #CreditCards #SpendingHabits #DiscountFallacy #WindfallEffect #PainOfPaying #DecisionMaking #Economics #BusinessPodcast #FexingoBusiness #BehavioralScience #MoneyMindset #RetailStrategy Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo
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    8 mins
  • Why Your Brain Treats a Price Match as a Trap

    Why Your Brain Treats a Price Match as a Trap
    Jul 2 2026
    Lucas and Luna explore why price-match guarantees actually reduce shopping around. Retailers like Best Buy and Home Depot rely on a behavioral quirk called 'cognitive closure' — once you see a price-match promise, your brain stops searching for better deals, even when the guarantee is hard to use. The hosts break down a 2024 study from the Journal of Marketing Research showing that price-match policies increase purchase likelihood by 22 percent but rarely result in actual claims. They also discuss the 'endowment effect' in reverse: shoppers treat the matched price as a loss if they don't buy immediately. Specific data points include how only 3 percent of consumers successfully file a price-match claim, and how the average savings from claims is just $11. The episode closes with a practical tip: when you see a price-match badge, consciously force yourself to check two other stores anyway. #PriceMatchGuarantee #CognitiveClosure #BehavioralEconomics #RetailPsychology #BestBuy #HomeDepot #JournalOfMarketingResearch #EndowmentEffect #ConsumerBehavior #PricingStrategy #LossAversion #ShoppingBias #Economics #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #DecisionMaking #Bias #MentalAccounting Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo
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    8 mins
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