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  • Misbehaving

  • The Making of Behavioral Economics
  • By: Richard H. Thaler
  • Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
  • Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,070 ratings)
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Misbehaving

By: Richard H. Thaler
Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
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Editor reviews

The unlikely duo of economics and behavioural psychology unite in the tremendously entertaining and vastly informative unabridged audiobook, Misbehaving, written by American economist Richard H. Thaler and narrated by L. J. Ganser. Breaking away from traditional understandings of economy, Thaler believes that in understanding and expecting irrational human behaviour, economists can predict the movement of the markets and economies far more accurately. In this enlightening book he helps you to recognise and make wise business and financial decisions, while taking into consideration the possibility of a volatile future economy. Available now from Audible.

Summary

Get ready to change the way you think about economics.

Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans - predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth - and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world.

Traditional economics assumes rational actors. Early in his research, Thaler realized these Spock-like automatons were nothing like real people. Whether buying a clock radio, selling basketball 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. More importantly, our misbehavior has serious consequences. 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 behavior, Thaler enlightens listeners about how to make smarter decisions in an increasingly mystifying world. He reveals how behavioral economic analysis opens up new ways to look at everything from household finance to assigning faculty offices in a new building, to TV game shows, the NFL draft, and businesses like Uber.

Laced with antic stories of Thaler's spirited battles with the bastions of traditional economic thinking, Misbehaving is a singular look into profound human foibles. When economics meets psychology, the implications for individuals, managers, and policy makers are both profound and entertaining.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2015 Richard H. Thaler (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Misbehaving

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    4 out of 5 stars

Behavioural Economics in Perspective

I've read a lot of behavioural economics books, but this one has a genuinely different perspective. Although it does present many of the standard ideas of behavioural economics, (how we contradict ourselves by wanting inconsistent things, or make systematic errors in our perceptions and decisions etc. and it does this very well) the book's overall theme is behavioural economics itself. It explains how BE impacts on classical economics, and how difficult and challenging it is for classically trained economists to adjust to what is genuinely a paradigm shift. Thaler draws out the importance of these shifts - before I had seen BE as a set of quirky anomalies and wrinkles but Thaler argues that humans, not 'econs', have to be put at the heart of economics, and that this calls for a fundamental reassessment of the subject. Thaler's style is personal (the book is written largely as a memoir) and sometimes it gets a touch self indulgent (the reorganisation of the economics department's offices), but Thaler's humorous tone and wit often carry this off. I loved the concept of the 'invisible hand wave'.

Narration: perfect, Ganser sounds like a sympathetic American economics professor.

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29 people found this helpful

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Excellent

I thoroughly enjoyed Misbehaving.

As other reviewers suggest it is quite autobiographical in tone so expect plenty of personal anecdotes from the author's life, rather than a straight-up discussion of the subject matter.

For me, this works really well. It allows you to get a real insight into the difficulties of trying to push a new way of thinking (behavioral economics) into an established field (traditional economics).

Misbehaving is, as the subtitle states, about the story of how this new field, behavioral economics came about, rather than just a direct explanation of what behavioral economics is. Although it does a fine job of explaining this too.

As a sidenote: I found one of the later chapters about the author's work for the UK government especially interesting, as a Brit myself.

Plus the naration was excellent.

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23 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A fantastic book that everyone should hear

Any additional comments?

I came to this book after reading "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely and "What you need to know about Economics" by George Buckley and Sumeet Desai, and I found this book to take me into a whole new level of understanding of both economics, psychology and the interplay that is behavioural economics.

The book covers all elements of behavioural economics from its inception up to modern day application, with the underlying theories extensively discussed through case studies and research. Richard Thaler writes in an honest and interesting way that is easy to grasp whilst maintaining a high level of detail. I do feel that the 2 books I read prior to this were helpful in my understanding of the themes of this book (Ariely's is "softer" and more psychology oriented, whilst Buckley and Desai's covers the basics of economics well enough to understand common terminology) but I wouldn't say it is entirely necessary to have that understanding, and I would DEFINITELY recommend this book regardless!! Easily 5 stars.

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18 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • RR
  • 23-09-19

Everything is always coming later

I persevered with this book because it kept promising interesting things would come in later chapters. It's very hard to skim through an audio book to see if this is true, so you just keep hoping. If you are really interested in the author's life, go ahead and read this. If you're a fan of Kahnemann and Tversky or Freakonomics and figure this will be a similar book, it won't. It hints at the margins, but if you've read the other works, you've covered it. It's not fun and quirky, it's a biography with some heavy papers on the stock market in the middle.

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16 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Don't sit next to this author at a dinner party...

Glad I read this solid history of behavioral economics but the author's waffly anecdotes about academic life and cheesy cornball humour really start grate after four hundred pages

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10 people found this helpful

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Interesting but long

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes I would, if it was a friend with a dedicated interest in economics and psychology. However, at 13 hours, its quite long for an audio book. Making it hard to digest in places, especially as, at times it felt like an autobiography rather than a book about behavioural economics. Too much time telling us about his life. Maybe there's an abridged version. Having said that some of the points were fascinating, and I think I took quite a lot from it,

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Ideas and theories were good

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Performance was ok.

If this book were a film would you go see it?

n/a

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9 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars

A bit disappointing.

This book is interesting and insightful. However I'm not sure if it's the narration or the author but it starts to get very long winded at times. It is as though once the point has been made it has to be remade again and again just to make sure you get it. The topics are interesting and each chapter starts off well and makes you eager to listen. Unfortunately it doesn't keep the momentum. I stopped listening at the 78% mark as I was just becoming too frustrated. I might try reading this book as I suspect it may be the narration.

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7 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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fantastic but doesnt work that well as an audio bo

the content and performance of this is perfect but he uses figures to explain statistic and data from experiments. while it is possible to follow the narration without these figures, it would be preferable to have see them and being able to reference then easily.

i will definitely pick up the book instead but if you dont like reading this is still a wonderful audiobook to pick up

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4 people found this helpful

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Brilliant explanation of behavioural economics

Richard Thaler makes a complex academic discipline easy to understand - the mark of true intelligence. Very informative

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4 people found this helpful

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makes sense to me

Interesting history of the discipline with great stories backed up by sound science. A great read.

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4 people found this helpful