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paola_mobileread's review
5.0
This books collects some of the papers that [a:Richard H. Thaler|65483|Richard H. Thaler|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] authored with various colleagues in the "Anomalies" series of the Journal of Economic Perspectives over the period 1987-1990, investigating behaviours which could not be accounted for by the standard economics paradigm. In spite of the time that has gone by, many of the anomalies are still relevant today. Of the academic journals published by the American Economic Association, this is the one more oriented to a general readership, making this a very accessible book to non economists.
novemah's review
4.0
I have to admit that I didn't fully understand every last technical detail, but it was great to think about the general ideas Thaler covered in each chapter. (My favorite was the chapter on preference reversals, where option A is preferred over option B, but option B is priced more than option A.) His overall message was that there are persistent economic anomalies that challenge certain economic theories, and it's because people are more complicated (or perhaps less rational) than economic models assume.
Every chapter is really well organized: he starts every chapter with an anecdote illustrating the idea, he goes through some actual experiments that have found that people consistently deviate from what economic theory would predict, then he goes through reasons why people may be systematically acting in ways that don't align with theory, and finally he ends with some ideas on how we could refine economic models and what to do with the info. Some of his ending thoughts are fun, like this one:
"The problem seems to be that while economists have gotten increasingly sophisticated and clever, consumers have remained decidedly human. This leaves open the question of whose behavior we are trying to model. Along these lines, at an NBER conference a couple of years ago I explained the difference between my models and Robert Barro's (a well-known rationalist) by saying that he assumes the agents in his model are as smart as he is, while I portray people as being as dumb as I am. Barro agreed with this assessment."
Lots of good food for thought if you don't mind reading stuff that's more on the technical side.
Every chapter is really well organized: he starts every chapter with an anecdote illustrating the idea, he goes through some actual experiments that have found that people consistently deviate from what economic theory would predict, then he goes through reasons why people may be systematically acting in ways that don't align with theory, and finally he ends with some ideas on how we could refine economic models and what to do with the info. Some of his ending thoughts are fun, like this one:
"The problem seems to be that while economists have gotten increasingly sophisticated and clever, consumers have remained decidedly human. This leaves open the question of whose behavior we are trying to model. Along these lines, at an NBER conference a couple of years ago I explained the difference between my models and Robert Barro's (a well-known rationalist) by saying that he assumes the agents in his model are as smart as he is, while I portray people as being as dumb as I am. Barro agreed with this assessment."
Lots of good food for thought if you don't mind reading stuff that's more on the technical side.
djfreshjams's review
2.0
Interesting topics, but often really dry and dull writing--Misbehaving is a much better book by the same author on largely the same subjects.
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