Congratulations to Richard Thaler on Being Awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

[News]

October 03, 2017

Thaler was honored for his work on behavioral economics.

Bloomberg View Cites Thaler's "Anomalies"

[News]

October 10, 2017

Nobel prize winner's column ran for nearly 20 years in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Planet Money cites Richard Thaler's JEP column "Anomalies"

[News]

November 02, 2017

The popular NPR radio show and podcast dedicates an entire episode to Thaler's contributions to behavioral economics.

Individual Preferences, Monetary Gambles, and Stock Market Participation: A Case for Narrow Framing

By Nicholas Barberis, Ming Huang and Richard H. Thaler

American Economic Review, September 2006

We argue that “narrow framing,” whereby an agent who is offered a new gamble evaluates that gamble in isolation, may be a more important feature of decisionmaking than previously realized. Our starting point is the evidence that people are often aver...

Annuitization Puzzles

[Symposium: After Retirement]

By Shlomo Benartzi, Alessandro Previtero and Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2011

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech given in 1985, Franco Modigliani drew attention to the "annuitization puzzle": that annuity contracts, other than pensions through group insurance, are extremely rare. Rational choice theory predicts that households w...

Deal or No Deal? Decision Making under Risk in a Large-Payoff Game Show

By Thierry Post, Martijn J. van den Assem, Guido Baltussen and Richard H. Thaler

American Economic Review, March 2008

We examine the risky choices of contestants in the popular TV game show "Deal or No Deal" and related classroom experiments. Contrary to the traditional view of expected utility theory, the choices can be explained in large part by previous outcomes ex...

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By Richard Watt, Matthew Rabin and Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2002

Anomalies: Preference Reversals

By Amos Tversky and Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1990

The preference reversal phenomenon has been established in numerous studies during the last two decades, but its causes have only recently been uncovered. This phenomenon, or cluster of phenomena, challenges the traditional assumption that the decisionmak...

Behavioral Economics Comes of Age: A Review Essay on Advances in Behavioral Economics

By Wolfgang Pesendorfer

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2006

Advances in Behavioral Economics contains influential second-generation contributions to behavioral economics. Building on the seminal work by Kahnemann, Strotz, Thaler, Tversky, and others, these contributions have established behavioral economi...

The Nominal Share Price Puzzle

By William C. Weld, Roni Michaely, Richard H. Thaler and Shlomo Benartzi

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2009

The average nominal share prices of common stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange have remained constant at approximately $35 per share since the Great Depression as a result of stock splits. It is surprising that U.S. firms actively maintained cons...

Anomalies: The Winner's Curse

By Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1988

Next time that you find yourself a little short of cash for lunch, try the following experiment in your class. Take a jar and fill it with coins, noting the total value of the coins. Now auction off the jar to your class (offering to pay the winning bidde...

Anomalies: The Law of One Price in Financial Markets

By Owen A. Lamont and Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

The Law of One price states that identical goods (or securities) should sell for identical prices. In financial markets the law of one price is thought to hold almost exactly, and is the basis for much of financial economic theory. We present evidence on ...

Libertarian Paternalism

By Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

American Economic Review, May 2003

In Honor of Matthew Rabin: Winner of the John Bates Clark Medal

By Colin Camerer and Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2003

Although there is some evidence that Matthew Rabin existed before 1990, we had the pleasure of discovering him for ourselves when, in the early 1990s, he sent each of us a copy of his manuscript "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics" [2]....

Anomalies: Utility Maximization and Experienced Utility

By Daniel Kahneman and Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2006

In this column, we discuss a version of the utility maximization hypothesis that can be tested—and we find that it is false. We review empirical challenges to utility maximization, which return to the old question of whether preferences optimize the exp...

Anomalies: Parimutuel Betting Markets: Racetracks and Lotteries

By Richard H. Thaler and William T. Ziemba

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1988

Economists have given great attention to stock markets in their efforts to test the concepts of market efficiency and rationality. Yet wagering markets are, in one key respect, better suited for testing market efficiency and rationality. The advantage of ...

Helping Consumers Know Themselves

By Emir Kamenica, Sendhil Mullainathan and Richard Thaler

American Economic Review, May 2011

Firms sometimes know more about a consumer's expected usage than the consumer herself. We explore the consequences of this reversal in the information asymmetry. We analyze the consequences of making consumers more informed about themselves. While making ...

Heuristics and Biases in Retirement Savings Behavior

[Symposium: The Adequacy of Retirement Saving]

By Shlomo Benartzi and Richard Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2007

Standard economic theories of saving implicitly assume that households have the cognitive ability to solve the relevant optimization problem and the willpower to execute the optimal plan. Both of the implicit assumptions are suspect. Even among economists...

Design Choices in Privatized Social-Security Systems: Learning from the Swedish Experience

By Henrik Cronqvist and Richard H. Thaler

American Economic Review, May 2004

Naive Diversification Strategies in Defined Contribution Saving Plans

By Shlomo Benartzi and Richard H. Thaler

American Economic Review, March 2001

There is a worldwide trend toward defined contribution saving plans and growing interest in privatized Social Security plans. In both environments, individuals are given some responsibility to make their own asset-allocation decisions, raising concerns ab...