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samstillreading's review against another edition
4.0
I first became interested in behavioural economics a few years ago. It’s a branch of economics that combines some psychology elements, asking the question – what if humans don’t behave rationally? What if they do things that benefit them and not others? What if they act stupidly? It’s quite a departure the basis of traditional economics – even radical. Richard Thaler is one of the pioneers of this field and this is the story of how it all happened.
The story starts with Thaler as a young economist, noting that his professors didn’t think he would amount to much. He starts working with psychologists on the fringe of what’s expected in economics, pushing the envelope on disproving the basis theories of economics that you would have learned in high school. But humans don’t behave like ‘Econs’, those rational, selfless beings. They can be lazy (something Thaler calls himself several times) and they make mistakes. They will travel extra to save $10 on a $500 purchase, but not on a $30 purchase (which is just bad maths). They have biases and are more willing to take risks if they are losing to even the stakes (which makes no sense). It’s an insight into how we all behave at various times – inconsistently and with varying fairness. Thaler follows this through with multiple examples and experiments as the book travels through his career. It starts with everyday issues and continues into the world of finance, looking at the stock market and other areas. (This wasn’t my favourite area of the book, maybe because I don’t work in the area but it did raise a lot of points about value and investment). There is a relatively small part about nudge economics in the UK to gently direct people into making correct choices (you can read more in the book Nudge). However, I really enjoyed the stories about the university faculty choosing their new offices and the draft for American football. All totally relatable and apply to other sports with drafts too.
Thaler writes with a hefty dose of humour. I took this book to the hairdresser and didn’t expect to be laughing so much. It’s easy to understand and read, with multiple diagrams to highlight certain experiments as well as references should you want to look anything up in more detail. It’s probably not the book to start with if you have no economics background at all, but if you know a bit about traditional economics you’ll love how Thaler pokes fun at it.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
The story starts with Thaler as a young economist, noting that his professors didn’t think he would amount to much. He starts working with psychologists on the fringe of what’s expected in economics, pushing the envelope on disproving the basis theories of economics that you would have learned in high school. But humans don’t behave like ‘Econs’, those rational, selfless beings. They can be lazy (something Thaler calls himself several times) and they make mistakes. They will travel extra to save $10 on a $500 purchase, but not on a $30 purchase (which is just bad maths). They have biases and are more willing to take risks if they are losing to even the stakes (which makes no sense). It’s an insight into how we all behave at various times – inconsistently and with varying fairness. Thaler follows this through with multiple examples and experiments as the book travels through his career. It starts with everyday issues and continues into the world of finance, looking at the stock market and other areas. (This wasn’t my favourite area of the book, maybe because I don’t work in the area but it did raise a lot of points about value and investment). There is a relatively small part about nudge economics in the UK to gently direct people into making correct choices (you can read more in the book Nudge). However, I really enjoyed the stories about the university faculty choosing their new offices and the draft for American football. All totally relatable and apply to other sports with drafts too.
Thaler writes with a hefty dose of humour. I took this book to the hairdresser and didn’t expect to be laughing so much. It’s easy to understand and read, with multiple diagrams to highlight certain experiments as well as references should you want to look anything up in more detail. It’s probably not the book to start with if you have no economics background at all, but if you know a bit about traditional economics you’ll love how Thaler pokes fun at it.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
tvrandhavane's review against another edition
5.0
A good book to learn the basics and the history of behavioral economics written by one of the field's pioneers. The writing is witty and funny. The technical difficulty remains low making it not a difficult book to read. Overall, a great book indeed and I couldn't find a flaw in it.
alexriabtsev's review against another edition
5.0
Чудова книга для розширення свiтогляду з сучасноï економіки!
niharikaaaaaa9's review against another edition
4.0
A fascinating book about the field of behavioral economics, though it was a little dry at times. I appreciated that Thaler had a good combination of anecdotes and data to prove his points, and described both in a way that didn't require a PhD in economics to understand. While many of the insights from the experiments he ran were interesting, what I found most captivating was the last section of the book, in which Thaler describes "nudging" and shows real world examples about the effects that it had. Overall, a good introduction to behavioral economics for someone (me) who knows very little about the field.
robthereader's review against another edition
4.0
Written as a reflective journal through Thaler’s career, Misbehaving lays out the ascent of behavioral economics with anecdotes and breakthroughs. Thaler and his renegade colleagues are met with opposition to their unorthodox of applying social science principles and research by traditional normative economists who insist markets are dominated by logical axioms. Where Thaler does not necessarily disagree that markets would be best run if they followed these exulted ideas, he does disagree in that they do not accurately reflect how humans, not their theoretical counterparts, Econs, actually make fiscal decisions.
The format of the book details Thaler’s humble starts as a self described lazy graduate student through his chance encounters with expert psychologists who steer his career in the direction of challenging the long accepted tenets of economics through first identifying irregularities that are supposedly irrelevant factors (SIF). This leads to conversing with further experts and then conferences and papers that successfully inject fresh ideas into the status quo.
As a novel economics writer, I did not take interest in Thaler’s long exposes on the quirky characters and stars of economics. In fact, I thought of demoting my rating until the end when he does his best writing in connecting real solutions to real problems with the principles of behavioral economics. His writing does however add to his style and allows the reader to develop further interest if they can get through the first few sections.
All in all, I enjoyed his introductions and clarifications to economics and finance topics. In particular, he does a good job of illustrating prospect theory as sort of the scientific process of economics. His recommendations for opt out retirement plans, preferred drafting and hiring strategies and office layouts all make for simple reminders on what drives human decisions. Having read this book, I look forward to reading his more acclaimed book, Nudge, which I suspect will follow a writing pattern more similar to the end of this novel rather than its beginning.
The format of the book details Thaler’s humble starts as a self described lazy graduate student through his chance encounters with expert psychologists who steer his career in the direction of challenging the long accepted tenets of economics through first identifying irregularities that are supposedly irrelevant factors (SIF). This leads to conversing with further experts and then conferences and papers that successfully inject fresh ideas into the status quo.
As a novel economics writer, I did not take interest in Thaler’s long exposes on the quirky characters and stars of economics. In fact, I thought of demoting my rating until the end when he does his best writing in connecting real solutions to real problems with the principles of behavioral economics. His writing does however add to his style and allows the reader to develop further interest if they can get through the first few sections.
All in all, I enjoyed his introductions and clarifications to economics and finance topics. In particular, he does a good job of illustrating prospect theory as sort of the scientific process of economics. His recommendations for opt out retirement plans, preferred drafting and hiring strategies and office layouts all make for simple reminders on what drives human decisions. Having read this book, I look forward to reading his more acclaimed book, Nudge, which I suspect will follow a writing pattern more similar to the end of this novel rather than its beginning.