Heard the ones about good comedians and behavioural economics?

Rory Sutherland

Following Rory Sutherland's reading of How I Escaped My Certain Fate by the comedian Stewart Lee, he considers how, like humour, advertising is something that can only be judged behaviourally.

Heard the ones about good comedians and behavioural economics?

Rory Sutherland

Rory Sutherland examines the link between behavioural economics and humour, observing what the best marketing ideas have in common with jokes: they don't stand up to rational analysis

This past week I have been reading How I Escaped My Certain Fate by the fascinating and innovative stand-up comedian Stewart Lee. The book – a kind of autobiography – is extremely funny, but it is also remarkable in another way.

Perhaps more than any other art form, it has become axiomatic in comedy that ‘you can't analyse...

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