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Richard Thaler    

Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago; Author of "Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics"

Richard H. Thaler is the 2017 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to behavioral economics. Thaler studies behavioral economics and finance as well as the psychology of decision-making which lies in the gap between economics and psychology. He investigates the implications of relaxing the standard economic assumption that everyone in the economy is rational and selfish, instead entertaining the possibility that some of the agents in the economy are sometimes human.

Thaler is the co-author (with Cass R. Sunstein) of the global best seller "Nudge" (2008) in which the concepts of behavioral economics are used to tackle many of society’s major problems. In 2015 he published "Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics". He has authored or edited four other books: "Quasi-Rational Economics", "The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life", and "Advances in Behavioral Finance" (editor) Volumes I and II. He has published numerous articles in prominent journals such as the American Economics Review, the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Political Economy.

Thaler is a member of the National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Finance Association and the Econometrics Society, and in 2015 served as the President of the American Economic Association.

Before joining the University of Chicago faculty in 1995 Thaler taught at the University of Rochester and Cornell as well as visiting stints at The University of British Columbia, the Sloan School of Management at MIT, the Russell Sage Foundation and the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford.

Originally from New Jersey, Thaler attended Case Western Reserve University where he received a bachelor's degree in 1967. Soon after, he attended the University of Rochester where he received a master's degree in 1970 and a PhD in 1974. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1995.

Speech Topics


Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life

Richard Thaler challenges the received economic wisdom by revealing many of the paradoxes that abound even in the most painstakingly constructed transactions. He presents literate, challenging, and often funny examples of such anomalies as why most shoppers will save on one appliance only to pass up the identical savings on another, and why sports fans who wouldn't pay more than $200 for a Super Bowl ticket wouldn't sell one they own for less than $400.

Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Nudge is about choices - how we make them and how we can make better ones. Drawing on decades of research in the fields of behavioral science and economics, Richard Thaler offers a new perspective on preventing the countless mistakes we make -bad personal investments, consumption of unhealthy foods, neglect of our natural resources- and shows us how sensible "choice architecture" can successfully nudge people toward the best decisions.

News


Overcoming Obstacles to Better Health Care - NYTimes.com
By RICHARD H. THALER. Published: February 23, 2013. AMERICANS spend far more on health care than people in other countries and we have little to show ...
Public Policies, Made to Fit People - NYTimes.com
By RICHARD H. THALER. Published: August 24, 2013. I HAVE written here before about the potential gains to government from involving social and behavioral ...
Shifting Our Retirement Savings Into Automatic
By RICHARD H. THALER. Published: April 6, 2013. MANY problems are so complex that even if we had the money to fix them, we wouldn't know how to do it.
NPR.org » Automatic-Enrollment IRAs Get A Test Run In California
But that automatic enrollment is the key, says Richard Thaler, a behavioral economist at the University of Chicago. "The only way most humans are able to save ...
Geek Squad - By Richard Thaler | Foreign Policy
Why did Nate Silver get it right in 2012 when so many others were so wrong? COMMENTS (0) SHARE: Twitter. Reddit. Bookmark and Share More.
Making Risk-Taking Riskier Will Hurt Startups - Bloomberg
By Richard H. Thaler 2012-10-24T22:30:55Z. A recurring theme of this year's presidential campaign is the need to encourage the formation of new businesses.

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