The Winner's Curse Behavioral Economics Anomalies, Then and Now

by Thaler, Richard H.; Imas, Alex

• ISBN13: 9781982165116
• ISBN10: 1982165111
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-10-21
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler and rising star economist Alex Imas explore behavioral economics in this fully updated edition of the seminal work The Winner’s Curse.

Why do people cooperate with one another when they have no (selfish) motivation to do so? Why do we hold onto possessions of little value? And why is the winner of an auction so often disappointed?

In the original 1992 version of The Winner’s Curse, Richard Thaler introduced readers to behavioral economics, challenging the notion of traditional economics that people are selfish, rational optimizers and behave accordingly every time. Three decades later, Thaler has teamed up with economist Alex Imas to provide fresh insights in this fully updated edition. They revisit Thaler’s original columns on economic anomalies, some written with collaborators like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, and explore how these anomalies hold up today.

Many anomalies remain, whether in households saving for retirement (or not), professional golfers putting for millions of dollars, or shoppers at large retail chains. In this era of meme stocks and Dogecoin, it is hard to defend the view that financial markets are highly efficient. The good news, however, is that they have gotten funnier.

With both readability and rigor, The Winner’s Curse is approachable for anyone with even a cursory understanding of economics, without oversimplifying so that experts cannot read it without cringing. In the final chapter, the authors reflect on the field’s progress and future. Thaler and Imas offer an updated classic even more relevant today to understand the true nature of decision-making in today’s economy.

Author Biography

Richard H. Thaler received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He is a distinguished professor of economics and behavioral science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Decision Research. He is the New York Times bestselling coauthor of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Cass Sunstein) and the author of Misbehaving and Quasi Rational Economics. He is also one in a rotating team of economists who writes for The New York Times “Economic View” column.

Alex O. Imas is an associate professor of behavioral science and economics at the University of Chicago. He is the recipient of the 2023 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Review of Financial Studies Rising Scholar Award, the New Investigator Award from the Behavioral Science and Policy Association, the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award from the Society of Judgment and Decision Making, the Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Previously, he was assistant professor of behavioral economics at Carnegie Mellon University.