The secret insights of economics, translated for the rest of us.

Should I buy or rent? Do I ask for a promotion? Should I tell people I’m pregnant? What salary do I deserve? Should I just quit this job? Common anxieties about life are often grounded in economics. In an increasingly win-lose society, these economic decisions—where to work, where to live, even how to live—have a way of feeling fixed and mistakes terminal.

Daryl Fairweather is no stranger to these dynamics. As the first Black woman to receive an economics PhD from the famed University of Chicago, she saw firsthand how concepts of behavioral economics and game theory were deployed in the real world—and in her own life—to great effect.