A biography for Richard Thalerhasn’t been written yet.
“The supply price and the demand price should be roughly the same. You're not supposed to have two different prices. According to economists.”
“Doctors and hospitals should be paid for keeping their patients well. Paying them for doing more tests and surgeries creates bad incentives.”
“Morality aside, there are other factors deterring 'strategic defaults,' whether in recourse or nonrecourse states. These include the economic and emotional costs of giving up one's home and moving, the perceived social stigma of defaulting, and a serious hit to a borrower's credit rating.”
“If governments want to encourage good citizenship, they should try making the desired behavior more fun.”
“Many Americans say they want to be organ donors, but they just don't get around to acting on their intentions. Helping these potential good Samaritans overcome their inertia could prolong thousands of lives a year.”
“When it comes to assessing the chances of some complicated combination of events, gut feelings are pretty much useless.”
“There's a reason why start-ups, especially disruptive start-ups - like Google or Amazon or Uber - are full of young people. That's because young people are not as wedded to the old fashioned ways of doing things.”
“Claiming that Social Security benefits are safe may sound naive, but my view is actually quite cynical. I believe that as long as the elderly continue to vote in large numbers, no Congress will renege on promised payouts for those already eligible to receive benefits.”
“Behavioral economics offers a plausible explanation for overreactions by the market. For example, a long period of bad performance can lead to stereotyping.”
“Companies are accumulating vast amounts of information about your likes and dislikes. But they are doing this not only because you're interesting. The more they know, the more money they can make.”
“God did not say that you should be able to borrow one hundred percent of the price of a house.”
“Social Security may be the most beloved of all the government's programs, partly because it requires so little thinking. You pay taxes while you work, then you and your spouse collect until you die.”
“Whenever I'm asked to autograph a copy of 'Nudge,' the book I wrote with Cass Sunstein, the Harvard law professor, I sign it, 'Nudge for good.' Unfortunately, that is meant as a plea, not an expectation.”
“In the 1940s, economics started getting highly mathematical. It was basically because economists weren't smart enough to write down models of real behavior that they started writing down models of highly rational behavior - and they kind of forgot about humans.”
“Academia does not provide many opportunities for immediate gratification. You work for two years on a project, it takes two more years to get it published, and then you start hoping someone might read it.”
“When it comes to my health, I would rather my doctor base her decisions on science rather than what she, or some lawyer, thinks will stand up in court.”
“People make just as many mistakes when the stakes go up, maybe more.”
“The wealth in many large estates has never been taxed because it is largely in the form of unrealized - therefore untaxed - capital gains.”
“Pundits are no better at forecasting election outcomes than they would be at predicting the final path of a hurricane. Smart pundits should consider either abandoning this activity or consulting with the geeks before rendering their guesses.”
“Everyone knows it's dangerous to ingest gasoline or to inhale its fumes. But I am starting to believe that merely thinking about the price of gasoline can damage cognitive processing.”