Article excerpt. Richard H. Thaler, Father of Behavioral Economics; Recipient, 2017 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science; Director, Center for Decision Research, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business; Author, Misbehaving

It is a fundamental principle of economics that a person is always better off if they have more alternatives to choose from.

There are cases when I can make myself better off by restricting my future choices and commit myself to a specific course of action.

The idea of commitment as a strategy is an ancient one. Odysseus famously had his crew tie him to the mast so he could listen to the Sirens’ songs without falling into the temptation to steer the ship into the rocks. And he committed his crew to not listening by filling their ears with wax.

Another classic is Cortés’s decision to burn his ships upon arriving in Mexico, thus removing retreat as one of the options his crew could consider.

It is well known that thorny games such as the prisoner’s dilemma can be solved if both players can credibly commit themselves to cooperating, but how can I convince you that I will cooperate when it is a dominant strategy for me to defect? (And, if you and I are game theorists, you know that I know that you know that I know that defecting is a dominant strategy.)

Many of society’s thorniest problems, from climate change to Middle East peace could be solved if the relevant parties could only find a way to commit themselves to some future course of action.