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Richard Thaler explains the concept of loss aversion through an experiment involving Cornell coffee mugs. Participants who received a mug demanded twice as much to give it up than those who didn't have one were willing to pay to acquire it. This illustrates how people value retaining possessions more than acquiring new ones, leading to less trade.
Richard Thaler shares his approach to writing his new book, which includes providing concise takeaways for both economists and general readers. He emphasizes the value of making complex economic concepts accessible and engaging.
Richard Thaler discusses the concept of 'nudges' and how changing a simple form increased employee participation in savings plans from 50% to 90%. By automatically enrolling employees unless they opt out, companies can significantly improve participation rates.
Richard Thaler discusses overconfidence in decision-making, using the example of CFOs predicting the S&P 500's return. Despite being asked for high and low estimates, their predictions often miss the mark, highlighting the difficulty of market predictions.
Richard Thaler highlights the ethical considerations of nudges, noting that while they can be used to help people make better decisions, they can also be exploited for profit, as seen in the design of casinos and online gambling platforms.
Richard Thaler explains the 'winner's curse' using a classroom auction of a jar of coins. The highest bidder often overpays, illustrating how competitive bidding can lead to irrational decisions. This concept was first identified by engineers at ARCO when bidding for oil leases.
Richard Thaler discusses the resistance he faced in academia when introducing behavioral economics. He recalls a time when he presented his theories on saving behavior to a psychology department, and the audience laughed because they found the traditional economic models unrealistic. Thaler points out that economists believed people behaved like expert billiards players, acting as if they knew physics, which he found absurd.
Richard Thaler and Danny Kahneman explored fairness in economics by asking if it's fair for a hardware store to raise snow shovel prices after a blizzard. Most people said no, except business school students, who believed it was justified based on microeconomic principles.
Richard Thaler discusses his project of revisiting and updating his 1992 book on economic anomalies. He highlights the importance of verifying whether the foundational experiments still hold true today, both in theory and in real-world applications.
Richard Thaler explains that the 'Winner's Curse' is a concept where people often overbid in auctions, leading to overpayment. He shares a story about an editor who avoided bidding on a book because he understood this concept, illustrating its practical application.