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Richard H. Thaler

The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life Paperback – January 10, 1994

by Richard H. Thaler (Author)

17 customer reviews

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In this book, Nobel Prize–winning economist Richard Thaler challenges the received economic wisdom by revealing many of the paradoxes that abound even in the most painstakingly constructed transactions. He presents literate, challenging, and often funny examples of such anomalies as why the winners at auctions are often the real losers--they pay too much and suffer the "winner's curse"--why gamblers bet on long shots at the end of a losing day, why shoppers will save on one appliance only to pass up the identical savings on another, and why sports fans who wouldn't pay more than $200 for a Super Bowl ticket wouldn't sell one they own for less than $400. He also demonstrates that markets do not always operate with the traplike efficiency we impute to them.

An ebook edition is available from The Free Press at leading on-line booksellers.

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"Richard H. Thaler, Winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics"

"By unraveling a series of real-world puzzles with philosophical and practical implications, Thaler illuminates some fairly abstruse ideas in an entertaining way.... The best minds in economics today, as Thaler's provocative book suggests, are trying to supplement [insights into markets and prices] with a broader understanding of what makes people tick."---Christopher Farrell, Business Week

"Richard Thaler ... stylishly recounts empirical findings that skewer hitherto sheltered economic beliefs."---Lola L. Lopes, Contemporary Psychology

From the Back Cover

Richard Thaler challenges the received economic wisdom by revealing many of the paradoxes that abound even in the most painstakingly constructed transactions. He presents literate, challenging, and often funny examples of such anomalies as why the winners at auctions are often the real losers - they pay too much and suffer the "winner's curse" - why gamblers bet on long shots at the end of a losing day, why shoppers will save on one appliance only to pass up the identical savings on another, and why sports fans who wouldn't pay more than $200 for a Super Bowl ticket wouldn't sell one they own for less than $400. He also demonstrates that markets do not always operate with the traplike efficiency we impute to them. Thaler argues that recognizing these sometimes topsy-turvy facts of economic behavior will compel economists, as well as those of us who live by their lights in our jobs and organizations, to adopt a more balanced view of human nature, one reflected in Adam Smith's professed belief that, despite our selfishness, there is something in our nature that prompts us to enjoy, even promote, the happiness of others.

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Product details

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press; 59688th edition (January 10, 1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780691019345
ISBN-13: 978-0691019345
ASIN: 0691019347
Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 17 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #413 in Theory of Economics

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robert waddington

Not as engaging as Thaler's other books, but probably one of the most important

October 24, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a dense, academic book. It is nowhere as accessible as Thaler's other books. This book, however, is where it all started. It is an edited compilation of articles he wrote at the early end of his career. These themes are all repeated and referred back to - albeit in more digestible pieces - in his later books and even in Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow.

4 people found this helpful

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Joel Skaistis

Best book out there in the Popular economics genre

August 23, 2009

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book is a little heavy on the math, which I enjoyed at times but at other times felt really lost and not too eager to go look up the referenced journal articles for the full explanation on the formulas used.

The other benefit of all the math is it makes all the points that Thaler raises in this book much more scientifically based. This book isn't pseudoscience.

That said, it's not like this book is a math textbook. In the style of Freakonomics, (although the Winner's Curse was written about a decade earlier) Thaler just jumps from one cool behavioral economics example to the next.

The thing from this book that stuck with me the most was the chapter on positive expected value lotteries. Apparently, they pop up every so often. Unfortunatley you need a billion dollar bankroll to take advantage of them, and I don't think Thaler included taxes when he was doing the expected value calculations, so they might not really exist at all.

5 people found this helpful

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JoshK

Very interesting

September 21, 2006

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

It gives you a great overview of some of the strange inconsitencies in human behavior. It is more than just a finance book and has many interesting stories that you can talk about with friends later.

4 people found this helpful

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Ryan Coleman

by an economist, for an economist

May 8, 2004

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

as an amateur economist grown increasingly dissatisfied w/ the failures of available theories, i was hopeful that this book would expound more on why markets fail. in some ways it did (in a very drab and boring language), although its coverage of financial markets (my interest) was all too brief and incomplete---the coverage of losers' outperformance of winners in equities was by far (IMHO) the best section of the book, but as good as that section was, the coverage of foreign exchange fluctuations was a failure. ---soros did a much better job of this.
there is some good material in this book, and i would give it 3 stars as a result, but the writing style makes it simply too inaccessible for the average reader. better financial market focus can be found in "reminisces of a stock operator" and "alchemy of finance", which really were accidental breakthroughs in behavioral finance (particularly the former--a gem of a book).
rhyno

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WinterTop Contributor: Photography

Very simplistic view of consumer decision making

February 8, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The "research" consists of gaming situations with very small groups, usually high school students with scenarios that do not begin to mimic real life economic decisions. Economics is a social science but this is not evident in this book which ignores the many social and psychological factors in consumer behavior.

The text is so detached from reality that having read it you will be no better able to make financial decisions at any level or predict those of others. Better to spend time talking to commission sales people to gain insights into consumer behavior.

2 people found this helpful

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Metallurgist

Behavioral economics for the real world.

February 10, 2006

Format: Paperback

The "Winners Curse" is a book about behavioral economics. It applies experimental human psychological studies to economic behavior. It consists of 14 chapters, each devoted to a different "anomaly" in economic behavior. The term anomaly is used by the author to denote behavior that runs counter to the assumptions of most theoretical economic models, which assume that people act in a rational and greedy manner. To me (not an economist), that anyone would base a theory on the assumptions of rational human behavior and that people are always greedy (seeking the maximum economic gain) is a bit irrational. It does not come as a surprise to me that people act irrationally and that they can sometimes act for the common good, instead of seeking maximum personal gain.

Each chapter starts with a brief hypothetical problem. Some are based on real problems, (such as playing the lottery, betting on horses, the calendar effect on stock market prices, foreign currency exchange problems, ...) or based on model games, (such as bargaining games, games where cooperation is required, auction games,....). The results of these experimental games and the statistical data on human behavior in real situations (such as stock market purchases) are then compared to the predictions of the theoretical models that assume rationality and greed. The point of the book is that it can be experimentally shown that people act irrationally (from an economic perspective) and can act in a manner that does not seek the maximum personal gain. The author does not believe that this spells the end for theoretical economic modeling, only that more psychological input is required.

This book is interesting, but in my opinion it is neither fish nor fowl. I do not think that it is rigorous enough to satisfy an economist, but is somewhat too complicated in spots for general readers. After the general statement of the problem there is a discussion of the experimental data that bears on the problem. This discussion can be hard for a non-economist (me) to follow at times. That said, I enjoyed book and got a lot of interesting information from it. I learned why it is sometimes a good deal (yielding a positive expected value) to play the lottery and what the most commonly chosen numbers are. The author also points out that this does not mean that you will win, only that if you and your descendants played at the correct times for a thousand years or so, you would eventually make more than what you would spend on tickets. In some situations it is thus favorable to buy tickets covering all the possible combinations, but you would need millions of dollars and a way to physically buy millions of tickets. I learned the best days to buy or sell a stock (at least statistically on which days the market tends to go up and on which it tends to go down).

By the way, the Winners Curse refers to the winner of an auction being cursed because the price paid was too high. I learned that with many bidders it is best to lower the maximum price that you are willing to pay. Unfortunately, doing this means that you will seldom get the item, but when you do succeed you will not be cursed by paying too much.

All in all, stick with it. If necessary, skip over some of the discussion of the experimental data and go to the concluding remarks for each chapter. I found it to be worth the effort.

13 people found this helpful

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Ryan Harvey

Approach Only With Game Theory Background

November 18, 2003

Format: Paperback

"The Winner's Curse" is a collection of academic articles Richard Thaler wrote for academic literature. And while Thaler thinks like a good economist, unfortunately, he writes like a good economist (that is, badly). This is a helpful book if you are interested in a rigorous mathematical treatment of economic anomalies and have a more than cursory understanding of game theory. If not, check out Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds instead.

38 people found this helpful

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Brian S. Yelvington

Intriguing for the academic mind

April 12, 2004

Format: Paperback

Most anyone will find this discussion of Thaler's (and his colleagues) work enough to whet their appetite for more on the subject. It is only a matter of time before you will find yourself digging up the academic papers behind the discussions. My only complaint: the supporting books by Kahneman and Tversky are expensive!

7 people found this helpful

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