Customer Reviews

Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them: Lessons from the Life-Changing Science of Behavioral Economics

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Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich's book, Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes was first published in 1999. Their book had an enormous impact on me. It was extremely well written and provided fascinating insights into the newly emerging field of behavioral finance. The authors explained why even the smartest people make foolish mistakes. I am certain that every reader experienced what I did, see themselves in the examples and stories provided.

Among the many mistakes the book covers are playing with the house's money, mental accounting (treating the same situation in different ways), confusing something that is familiar with something that is safe, believing in hot hands, herding, the endowment effect, loss aversion, and, of course, overconfidence.

The book triggered a desire to learn everything I could about the field. Eventually I wrote my own book on investor behavior, Rational Investing In Irrational Times: How to Avoid the Costly Mistakes Even Smart People Make (2002).

Fortunately, Belsky and Gilovich have revised and updated their book. Like its predecessor it's a great introduction to the field of behavioral finance. It's both highly readable and entertaining. The book is filled with fresh insights and each chapter contains practical advice on how to avoid the serious errors that most of us make simply because we are human beings. I view it as a must read for not only investors, but also those interested in human behavior.

For those interested in this fascinating field I would also recommend Jason Zweig's Your Money and Your Brain, Daniel Ariely's Predictably Irrational, and Hersh Shefrin's Beyond Greed and Fear.

Belsky and Gilovich give a great summary of the short history of the field of behavioral finance. More importantly, they present straightforward, thought-provoking suggestions about how to avoid making common financial mistakes. Much of economic theory is built upon the assumption that human beings are fundamentally rational actors, but this book shows that the idea that we act rationally and consistently in our best interest is just not true. I saw how contradictory and incongruous my own actions are in many areas of my financial life, especially with regard to investments, and I know that reading this book will make me more aware of preventing emotions like anxiety, pride, greed, and fear get in the way of making good decisions. This book is a must read not just for anyone who is an investor, but for everyone who takes part in our economic society (i.e. everyone). Read this book!

You'll never spend money the same after reading this book. It well written, entertaining and highly informative. I've bought a copy for family. Checked this out from the library and liked it so much I bought a copy.

What a book! Now, if you have an overly sensitive ego, this book may make you a little uneasy. However, if you truely want some honest insights into why very intelligent people can make some huge mistakes, then read this book. In some places the reading is a little tedious. However, the examples given and the corrective measures talked about to avoid mistakes have a lot of merit. I'm very thankful that I took a chance on this book. Personally, I think it is a very good and very insightful book.

I may be an atypical reviewer, but I bought the book just to get a quick list of the concepts and then to read more about concepts that I found interesting. I find that the book does not give me the opportunity to scan. Lots of unnecessary words. The concepts could be summarized in ten pages. Of course, many books are like this -- take a few simple ideas and see how far you can stretch them.