The Making of Behavioural Economics

Misbehaving

RICHARD H. THALER: WINNER OF THE 2017 NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS 
 
Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 
ECONOMIST, FINANCIAL TIMES and EVENING STANDARD books of the year 
 
From the renowned and entertaining behavioural economist and co-author of the seminal work Nudge, Misbehaving is an irreverent and enlightening look into human foibles. Traditional economics assumes that rational forces shape everything. Behavioural economics knows better. Richard Thaler has spent his career studying the notion that humans are central to the economy - and that we're error-prone individuals, not Spock-like automatons. Now behavioural economics is hugely influential, changing the way we think not just about money, but about ourselves, our world and all kinds of everyday decisions. 
 
Whether buying an alarm clock, selling football tickets, or applying for a mortgage, we all succumb to biases and make decisions that deviate from the standards of rationality assumed by economists. In other words, we misbehave. Dismissed at first by economists as an amusing sideshow, the study of human miscalculations and their effects on markets now drives efforts to make better decisions in our lives, our businesses, and our governments. 
 
Coupling recent discoveries in human psychology with a practical understanding of incentives and market behaviour, Thaler enlightens readers about how to make smarter decisions in an increasingly mystifying world. He reveals how behavioural economic analysis opens up new ways to look at everything from household finance to assigning faculty offices in a new building, to TV quiz shows, sports transfer seasons, and businesses like Uber. 
 
When economics meets psychology, the implications for individuals, managers and policy makers are both profound and entertaining.

Gripping... a novelised intellectual history, replete with heroes and villains, triumphs and disasters, conflicts and comradeship... Thaler is a brilliant scholar, endlessly curious, empirically inclined and public spirited

Misbehaving gives us the story behind some of the most important insights in modern economics. If I had to be trapped in an elevator with any contemporary intellectual, I'd pick Richard Thaler

A long, genial, often humorous account of the progress of Behavioural Economics by one of its most gifted practitioners. Kahneman has described Thaler as lazy; he meant it as a compliment because Thaler's laziness means he concentrates only on the really important questions that get him out of bed in the morning... this is important stuff

Robust enough intellectually to be a serious work of social science and a proper record of an important intellectual movement, Misbehaving is also fun for the general reader... a good book about an important topic

Professor Thaler's entertaining book provides an important reminder of both the challenges and opportunities that come from working across the sometimes artificial boundaries between academic disciplines

Richard H. Thaler is the Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics and the director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2017.

Behavioral Economics Anomalies Then and Now

The Winner's Curse

Richard H. Thaler (Author) 
Richard H. Thaler received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He is a distinguished service professor of economics and behavioral science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He is the New York Times bestselling coauthor of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Cass Sunstein) and the author of Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics. 
 
Alex O. Imas (Author) 
Alex O. Imas is Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago School’s Booth School of Business. He is the recipient of the 2023 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Review of Financial Studies Rising Scholar Award, the New Investigator Award from the Behavioral Science and Policy Association, the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award from the Society of Judgment and Decision Making, the Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Behavioral Economics at Carnegie Mellon University.

Why do people cooperate with one another when they have no (selfish) motivation to do so? Why do we hold onto possessions of little value? And why is the winner of an auction so often disappointed? 
 
In the original 1992 version of The Winner’s Curse, Richard Thaler introduced readers to behavioral economics, challenging the notion of traditional economics that people are selfish, rational optimizers and behave accordingly every time. Three decades later, Thaler has teamed up with economist Alex Imas to provide fresh insights in this fully updated edition. They revisit Thaler's original columns on economic anomalies, some written with collaborators like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, and explore how these anomalies hold up today. 
 
Many anomalies remain, whether in households saving for retirement (or not), professional golfers putting for millions of dollars, or shoppers at large retail chains. In this era of meme stocks and Dogecoin, it is hard to defend the view that financial markets are highly efficient. The good news, however, is that they have gotten funnier. 
 
With both readability and rigor, The Winner’s Curse is approachable for anyone with even a cursory understanding of economics, without oversimplifying so that experts cannot read it without cringing. In the final chapter, the authors reflect on the field’s progress and future. Thaler and Imas offer an updated classic even more relevant today to understand the true nature of decision-making in the current economy.

Richard H. Thaler

Cass R Sunstein

Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness

Nudge has transformed the way individuals, companies and governments look at the world - and in the process has become one of the most important books of the twenty-first century. This completely updated edition offers a wealth of new insights for fans and newcomers alike - about COVID-19, diet, personal finance, retirement savings, medical care, organ donation, and climate change. 
 
Every day we make decisions: about the things we buy or the meals we eat; about the investments we make and the time we spend; about our health and that of the planet. Unfortunately, we often choose badly. 
 
We are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions that make us poorer, less healthy and less happy. And, as Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein show, no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way. But by knowing how people think, we can make it easier for them to choose what is best for themselves, for their families and for society. With brilliant insight and wonderful levity, Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how best to nudge us in the right directions, without ever restricting our freedom of choice.

Richard H. Thaler

Books by Richard H. Thaler

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