Richard Thaler, Ph.D.

Nobel Prize Winner, Global Best-selling Author, and Expert on the Psychology of Decision-making

"Children begin making meaningful decisions early in their lives. There can be no more important skill than making sound choices, and no topic more deserving of attention in schools. We can and must help."

Affiliations:

  • University of Chicago Booth School of Business: Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics
  • Cornell University: Former SC Johnson College of Business professor
  • American Economic Association: Former President (2015)
  • Center for Decision Research (CDR): Former faculty director

Awards:

  • Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (2017)

Publications:

  • Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics
  • Nudge, global best seller co-authored with Cass R. Sunstein
  • Quasi-Rational Economics
  • The Winner’s Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life
  • Column for the Journal of Economic Perspectives, subsequently published by the Princeton University Press
  • Widely published in prominent journals such as the American Economics Review, The Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Political Economy

Education:

  • University of Rochester, Ph.D. and Master’s Degree
  • Case Western Reserve University, Bachelor’s Degree

Richard is a theorist in behavioral economics, and also studies the psychology of decision-making, which occupies the space between economics and psychology. He is currently the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he has been teaching since 1995.

Richard has a long history of moving the field of behavioral economics forward. He spent a year collaborating and researching with Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman at Stanford University in 1977-78. From 1978-1995, Richard was a SC Johnson College of Business faculty member at Cornell University. During that time, he penned a column for the Journal of Economic Perspectives, which was also published by the Princeton University Press in 1992.

Richard was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2017 because, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, his “contributions have built a bridge between the economic and psychological analyses of individual decision-making. His empirical findings and theoretical insights have been instrumental in creating the new and rapidly expanding field of behavioral economics.”

His highly acclaimed book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, which he co-authored with Harvard University Professor Cass Sunstein, demonstrated that by applying insights from behavioral sciences, organizations can guide—or nudge—human behavior in areas such as public policy, finance, and health. It has transformed how many industries, companies, organizations, and governments apply behavioral science to influence improved outcomes and has been called one of the most influential academic books of the 21st Century.

Richard was president of the American Economic Association and is the former faculty director of the Center for Decision Research (CDR), and the co-director of the Behavioral Economics Project at the National Bureau of Economic Research.