Can economics be passionate?... Can it center on people and what really matters to them day-in and day-out.... And help us understand their hidden motives for why they do what they do in everyday life?

Uri Gneezy and John List are revolutionaries. Their ideas and methods for revealing what really works in addressing big social, business, and economic problems gives us new understanding of the motives underlying human behavior. We can then structure incentives that can get people to move mountains, change their behavior--or at least get a better deal.

But finding the right incentive...