"Economists have some great tools for doing so, but Thaler got the field to appreciate that human beings, as impressive as we are in many ways, are subject to certain limitations that psychologists know a lot about. Those limitations, such as myopia, sloth and a fear of loss that exceeds the love of gains, have to be taken into account if we're going to truly understand economic decisions."
"During his time at Cornell, Thaler noticed these patterns of human nature and found that popular economic models were often off when it came to predicting actual human behavior. When making decisions, Thaler found people can veer away from what they "should" do and do just the opposite, even when doing so is costly. Thaler helped create the field of behavioral economics by uniting psychological research on human decision-making with the theories being taught in business schools."
Richard Thaler, Nobel laureate and University of Chicago professor, will visit campus Oct. 17 for a conversation with Thomas Gilovich at Statler Auditorium. The event is hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences and the SC Johnson College of Business, is free, and open to the public. Thaler won the 2017 Nobel Prize for work he conducted at Cornell in the 1980s and helped found behavioral economics by integrating psychological insights into economic models. Thaler identified systematic human limitations—myopia, inertia, and loss aversion—that cause predictable departures from traditional rational-agent predictions, improving understanding of real economic decisions.
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