Sunstein & Thaler On Kahneman & Tversky

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The book “The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds,” by Michael Lewis, tells the story of the psychologists Amos Tversky, left, and Daniel Kahneman, right. Photograph Courtesy Barbara Tversky

We are more and more intrigued by this book, reviewed by two who knew the subject(s) better than most:

THE TWO FRIENDS WHO CHANGED HOW WE THINK ABOUT HOW WE THINK

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In 2003, we reviewed “Moneyball,” Michael Lewis’s book about Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s. The book, we noted, had become a sensation, despite focussing on what would seem to be the least exciting aspect of professional sports: upper management. Beane was a failed Major League Baseball player who went into the personnel side of the business and, by applying superior “metrics,” had remarkable success with a financial underdog. We loved the book—and pointed out that, unbeknownst to the author, it was really about behavioral economics, the combination of economics and psychology in which we shared a common interest, and which we had explored together with respect to public policy and law. Continue reading

The Undoing Project, Reviewed

9780393254594_198.jpegWe are happy to see that the book mentioned last month is now available and has been reviewed in the New York Times, among other places, in addition to author interviews that are worth a look:

In the fall of 1969, behind the closed door of an otherwise empty seminar room at Hebrew University, two psychologists began a collaboration that would upend the understanding of human behavior. Those first conversations were filled with uproarious laughter and occasional shouting, in a jumble of Hebrew and English, which could sometimes be heard from the hallway. Continue reading

Do You Remember These Dates?

On July 20-22, 2007 all these people attended a workshop of sorts.  On those exact dates I was with my family on a small island in the Adriatic sea, watching off in the distance as fire fighters in airplanes performed their heroics in the forests surrounding Dubrovnik.  Little did I know that Daniel Kahneman was leading a master class for Edge (and those attendees) titled “A SHORT COURSE IN THINKING ABOUT THINKING.” Continue reading