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A review by wintrovia
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler
4.0
I studied economics when I was fifteen and haven’t had much to do with it since. This book is far more interesting than Mr Sykes’ long monologues about supply and demand but still falls somewhat short of being genuinely entertaining.
The book goes through Thaler’s career in chronological order and covers a lot of his studies, theories and publications. It also features some of the spats he had with rival academics which I suppose are added in for conflict but I felt they were a bit tedious and felt a bit like he was using the platform of the book to settle scores.
There are some genuinely insightful moments in the book and I feel like I’ve got a better grasp of behavioural economics now but it’s not always a gripping read. There’s possibly too much emphasis on the specifics of studies and the explanations are a bit laboured at times.
I felt like I wanted to skip ahead in some sections, as the point is often quite clear early on but more and more evidence is paraded out to really hammer home how right his theories are. This was particularly true of the sections about the stock market, which dominated the second half of the book.
The area which I found most interesting was the section about nudge theory, having already read Thaler’s book on this specific area. It was interesting to hear about how his theories had been applied by politicians and the strange meetings he had with members of the Conservative party in the UK.
I didn’t dislike this book but I didn’t feel compelled to keep reading it and found myself coming back to it with more a sense of duty than relish. There’s some interesting stuff but it feels like a thorough edit could knock a hundred and fifty pages off and make it a better book.
The book goes through Thaler’s career in chronological order and covers a lot of his studies, theories and publications. It also features some of the spats he had with rival academics which I suppose are added in for conflict but I felt they were a bit tedious and felt a bit like he was using the platform of the book to settle scores.
There are some genuinely insightful moments in the book and I feel like I’ve got a better grasp of behavioural economics now but it’s not always a gripping read. There’s possibly too much emphasis on the specifics of studies and the explanations are a bit laboured at times.
I felt like I wanted to skip ahead in some sections, as the point is often quite clear early on but more and more evidence is paraded out to really hammer home how right his theories are. This was particularly true of the sections about the stock market, which dominated the second half of the book.
The area which I found most interesting was the section about nudge theory, having already read Thaler’s book on this specific area. It was interesting to hear about how his theories had been applied by politicians and the strange meetings he had with members of the Conservative party in the UK.
I didn’t dislike this book but I didn’t feel compelled to keep reading it and found myself coming back to it with more a sense of duty than relish. There’s some interesting stuff but it feels like a thorough edit could knock a hundred and fifty pages off and make it a better book.