[naviga:h3]Walmart puts returns in fast lane[/naviga:h3]

NEW YORK — Online sales have divided retailers into two camps: the quick and the dead.

To that end, Walmart is altering its policies to speed returns, even it means that nothing is returned at all in some cases.

Starting next month through Walmart’s app, customers will be able to scan goods they no longer want with their own smartphone and drop it off at a customer service desk.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday that by using the app, returns will take 35 seconds or less. Returns right now are about quadruple that time, not including any wait in line.

[naviga:h3]Thaler wins Nobel in economics[/naviga:h3]

STOCKHOLM — The Nobel prize in economics was awarded Monday to Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago for research showing how people’s choices on economic matters — whether on savings or game shows like “Deal or No Deal” — are not always rational.

Thaler won the $1.1 million prize for “understanding the psychology of economics,” Swedish Academy of Sciences secretary Goran Hansson said Monday.

Thaler is considered a founding father of behavioral economics, a field that shows that far from being the rational decision-makers described in economic theory, people often make choices that don’t serve their best interests. That could include, for example, refusing to cut their losses when their investments plunge in value. The illogical behavior has economic consequences: people spend more than they should and don’t save enough for retirement. They make investments when prices are already dangerously high.

The Nobel committee said Thaler has provided a “more realistic analysis of how people think and behave when making economic decisions.”