Emily Oster

To put it mildly, I'm not crazy about the implication that pregnant women are incapable of deciding for themselves. ”

Being pregnant was a lot like being a child again. There was always someone telling you what to do. ”

All's fair in love and purchasing. ”

Nausea is a normal but unpleasant effect of pregnancy and a really good sign that it is going well. Women who experience nausea in early pregnancy are less likely to miscarry. ”

I had always been told that you shouldn't clean the litter box when you're pregnant, because of your cat. And I think that is overblown - unless you have, like, three kittens in your house that are living outside and eating raw meat, this shouldn't really be a significant source of concern. ”

Adhering to budgeting rules shouldn't trump good decision-making. ”

The key to good decision making is evaluating the available information - the data - and combining it with your own estimates of pluses and minuses. As an economist, I do this every day. ”

Good household decision-making often relies on thinking about your household like a firm. ”

If you have a traditional view of economics, you're probably thinking of Ben Bernanke making Fed policy, or the guys creating financial derivatives at Goldman Sachs. ”

I think we've moved to thinking of parenting and pregnancy as something in which you should lose yourself. ”