Scarcity

Scarcity, in the research of Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir, is the experience of having less than you feel you need, whether of money, time or energy. Their work, summarised in the 2013 book Scarcity, suggests that scarcity captures attention, a pattern they call tunneling, and leaves less mental room for everything else. They also describe how it can push people to borrow from the future. Some of the specific findings are debated, so we separate the well-supported ideas from the contested ones. This page collects our articles, quizzes and videos on scarcity and money stress.