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Misbehaving
Misbehaving
Oct 28, 2024 1:18 PM

Author:Richard H. Thaler

Misbehaving

RICHARD H. THALER: WINNER OF THE 2017 NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS

Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

ECONOMIST, FINANCIAL TIMES and EVENING STANDARD books of the year

From the renowned and entertaining behavioural economist and co-author of the seminal work Nudge, Misbehaving is an irreverent and enlightening look into human foibles. Traditional economics assumes that rational forces shape everything. Behavioural economics knows better. Richard Thaler has spent his career studying the notion that humans are central to the economy - and that we're error-prone individuals, not Spock-like automatons. Now behavioural economics is hugely influential, changing the way we think not just about money, but about ourselves, our world and all kinds of everyday decisions.

Whether buying an alarm clock, selling football tickets, or applying for a mortgage, we all succumb to biases and make decisions that deviate from the standards of rationality assumed by economists. In other words, we misbehave. Dismissed at first by economists as an amusing sideshow, the study of human miscalculations and their effects on markets now drives efforts to make better decisions in our lives, our businesses, and our governments.

Coupling recent discoveries in human psychology with a practical understanding of incentives and market behaviour, Thaler enlightens readers about how to make smarter decisions in an increasingly mystifying world. He reveals how behavioural economic analysis opens up new ways to look at everything from household finance to assigning faculty offices in a new building, to TV quiz shows, sports transfer seasons, and businesses like Uber.

When economics meets psychology, the implications for individuals, managers and policy makers are both profound and entertaining.

Reviews

Wildly disruptive

—— Michael Lewis , Bloomberg

Gripping... a novelised intellectual history, replete with heroes and villains, triumphs and disasters, conflicts and comradeship... Thaler is a brilliant scholar, endlessly curious, empirically inclined and public spirited

—— Guardian

Misbehaving gives us the story behind some of the most important insights in modern economics. If I had to be trapped in an elevator with any contemporary intellectual, I'd pick Richard Thaler

—— Malcolm Gladwell

A long, genial, often humorous account of the progress of Behavioural Economics by one of its most gifted practitioners. Kahneman has described Thaler as lazy; he meant it as a compliment because Thaler's laziness means he concentrates only on the really important questions that get him out of bed in the morning... this is important stuff

—— Bryan Appleyard , Sunday Times

Robust enough intellectually to be a serious work of social science and a proper record of an important intellectual movement, Misbehaving is also fun for the general reader... a good book about an important topic

—— Daniel Finkelstein , The Times

Professor Thaler's entertaining book provides an important reminder of both the challenges and opportunities that come from working across the sometimes artificial boundaries between academic disciplines

—— Jonathan A. Knee , New York Times

He will continue to glitter, this strange, lonely prospector in the universe of words, well into the next millennium and after, a master in the empire of the imagination

—— Independent

A writer of dizzying ambition and variety, each of his stories is a fresh adventure into the possibilities of fiction

—— Guardian

This set of interweaving short stories is a perfect way to get a more bite-sized read... There's a story in here that everyone can relate to

—— Woman & Home

The inimitable author of The Handmaid's Tail is spectacular at short stories

—— i

Atwood...writes infectiously... page after page proving that...[her] lavish literary talents remain wholly undiminished

—— Reader's Digest

[Old Babes in the Wood] showcase[s] Atwood's spiky wit and imagination

—— Sunday Express

The 15 stories in this collection from the stellar Margaret Atwood are book-ended by the touching, tender, grief-tinged tales of Tig and Nell

—— Eithne Farry , Daily Mail

There are authors we turn to because they can uncannily predict our future; there are authors we need for their skillful diagnosis of our present; and there are authors we love because they can explain our past. And then there are the outliers: those who gift us with timelines other than the one we're stuck in, realities far from home. If anyone has proved, over the course of a long and wildly diverse career, that she can be all four, it's Margaret Atwood . . . Long may she reign

—— New York Times Book Review

As affecting as any of Atwood's strongest work

—— Wired

In Old Babes in the Wood, Margaret Atwood delivers her signature sci-fi with a human heart. It is a story collection that teems with playfulness and invention... reminding us of her skill in the short form

—— Emily Watkins , i

A highly personal collection

—— Lisa O'Kelly , Observer

The Tig and Nell stories... are subtle and poignant, written in grief and from the heart

—— The Oldie

Devastating and thought-provoking in equal measure, you will find yourself thoroughly entertained - and we're sure you'll return to these again and again

—— Glamour

Atwood brings her trademark wit and invention to bear on subjects as diverse as a pandemic, cancel culture, female friendship, witchcraft - and cats

—— Observer

Old Babes in the Wood... [is] a clear demonstration of her prevailing skill as a writer

—— Arts Desk

As her short story collection Old Babes in the Wood debuts at the top of the fiction chart, Margaret Atwood can rest assured that she has reached literary legend status. It was one thing for The Handmaid's Tale to make it to No 1, but quite another for stories narrated by snails and aliens to do it

—— The Sunday Times

Her latest collection of short stories... proves once again she's also an impassioned observer of everyday people and their struggles, with a hilarious sense of humour

—— RTE *Book Of The Week*

Each [story] is interesting in its own right...Atwood's imagination and mastery of storytelling is evident

—— UK Press Syndication

[A] writer who is still so sparky and brilliant in the sudden ways she tips you into despair or delight. Whatever she's up to, I'll take more if it's going

—— Alys Key , Spectator

Quietly devastating

—— Suzi Feay , The Tablet

Any new publication by the estimable Atwood...is an event and this collection of 15 short stories is no exception

—— Evening Standard

Bracing, darkly funny and cheerfully unsentimental

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2023*

[A] masterclass in writing about the edges of everyday life. This collection of short stories that all link to the Sunshine State captures loneliness, alienation, abandonment and inner resourcefulness in the most creative of tales.

—— Victoria Sadler

Fantastical tales ... You'll be swept up in a wild hurricane of a ride with this lyrical stories of fury and love, loss and hope.

—— Newsweek

Each story is perfectly formed, exquisite, often troubling but there is something so brilliantly humane about her work.

—— Kate Hamer, Wales Art Review
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