Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics

Richard H. Thaler, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, traces the intellectual history of behavioral economics, a field that challenges the standard assumption that humans are perfectly rational actors. Through a narrative that blends academic history with personal anecdote, Thaler explains how insights from psychology—such as loss aversion, mental accounting, and present bias—have reshaped our understanding of decision-making in finance, policy, and daily life.

The book reads as an accessible memoir of a scientific revolution, detailing the friction between traditional economics and the emerging evidence of human irrationality. Thaler’s voice is conversational and self-deprecating, often using his own financial mistakes to illustrate broader economic principles. By highlighting the contributions of key figures like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the text serves as both a history of a discipline and a practical guide to understanding the cognitive shortcuts that drive human behavior.

Description adapted from Open Library bibliographic data ↗.