Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics

Why are we more likely to forgo the opportunity to sell a £100 bottle of wine rather than actually taking money out our wallet to pay for it, when ultimately the 'opportunity cost' of doing so is the same? Why would the 'endowment effect' mean that we value a free ticket worth hundreds of pounds more than the money we would get from selling it? In this new, ambitious work, Thaler presents his findings in behavioural economics and breaks down the biases and irrational tendancies in our thinking, showing us how to avoid making costly mistakes in life.

Richard H. Thaler is a pioneer in the fields of behavioral economics and finance.

Although his first writings on behavioral economics appeared in 1980, Thaler became more prominent between 1987 and 1990 when he wrote a regular column called 'Anomalies', published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. In his column he wrote on a myriad of subjects that illustrated the ways in which human behavior seemed to violate traditional economic theories. These columns were later published in the collection The Winner's Curse.

Daniel Kahneman later cited his joint work with Thaler as a 'major factor' in his receiving the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Commenting on the prize, he said, 'The committee cited me 'for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science'. Although I do not wish to renounce any credit for my contribution, I should say that in my view the work of integration was actually done mostly by Thaler and the group of young economists that quickly began to form around him.'

Thaler is currently the Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics, and Director of the Center for Decision Research, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. He previously taught at Cornell University and MIT.