Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I have an agent, John Brockman, who is an agent to many academic authors like Dan Gilbert and Steven Pinker, and he's very good at conning academics into writing books. He pulled this trick on me. "

Related Quotes:

" In some ways, the finding that financial education doesn't provide long-term payoffs is hardly surprising. After all, how much do you remember from your high school chemistry class? Unless you use chemistry at work, you probably don't recall much about ionic bonding. "

Richard Thaler

Education

Financial

Work

" As every successful parent learns, one way to encourage good behavior, from room-cleaning to tooth-brushing, is to make it fun. Not surprisingly, the same principle applies to adults. Adults like to have fun, too. "

" When it comes to assessing the chances of some complicated combination of events, gut feelings are pretty much useless. "

" Anybody who's ever been in a large organization realizes that 'optimizing' is not a word that would often be used to describe any large organization. The reason is that it's full of people, who are complicated. "

" It is true that I am one of the co-authors of 'Nudge,' and I am a behavioral economist, but it does not mean that everything we write about in that book is behavioral economics, nor does it mean that my co-author, the distinguished legal scholar Cass Sunstein, is a behavioral economist. "

" If you're not putting enough away for emergencies or retirement, making commitments in advance, such as signing up for payroll withholding, can help. "

Richard Thaler

Retirement

You

" One of society's thorniest problems is that children from poor families start school lagging badly behind their more affluent classmates in readiness. "

" People are less likely to think it's immoral to walk away from their home if they know others who have done so. And if enough people do it, the stigma begins to erode. "

" Countries all around the world, starting with the U.K., have started behavioural insight teams, often referred to as nudge units. And they seem to be doing lots of good. "

" I think behavioral economists don't have any more of an explanation about the rise of Trump than anyone else. "

Richard Thaler

Economists

I Think

" Many problems are so complex that even if we had the money to fix them, we wouldn't know how to do it. Fixing inner-city schools, reducing obesity, creating peace in the Middle East are just a few examples. "

" Behavioral economics offers a plausible explanation for overreactions by the market. For example, a long period of bad performance can lead to stereotyping. "

" Whenever I'm asked to autograph a copy of 'Nudge,' the book I wrote with Cass Sunstein, the Harvard law professor, I sign it, 'Nudge for good.' Unfortunately, that is meant as a plea, not an expectation. "

" High school seniors should receive help in how to think about a student loan and how to make sure that the education bought with the loan offers good prospects for repayment. "

" If no estate tax is imposed, capital gains taxes can be avoided indefinitely. "

" Lotteries are just one way to provide positive reinforcement. Their power comes from the fact that the chance of winning the prize is overvalued. "

" Traditional economics is based on imaginary creatures sometimes referred to as 'Homo economicus.' I call them Econs for short. Econs are amazingly smart and are free of emotion, distraction or self-control problems. Think Mr. Spock from 'Star Trek.' "

" Academia does not provide many opportunities for immediate gratification. You work for two years on a project, it takes two more years to get it published, and then you start hoping someone might read it. "

" We all need a lot of humility, and especially about the economy. "

" As a general rule, the United States government is run by lawyers who occasionally take advice from economists. Others interested in helping the lawyers out need not apply. "

" In the world of traditional economics, it shouldn't matter whether you use an opt-in or opt-out system. So long as the costs of registering as a donor or a nondonor are low, the results should be similar. But many findings of behavioral economics show that tiny disparities in such rules can make a big difference. "

" If you're trading individual securities, you're almost certainly making a mistake. Because most professional managers can't outperform their benchmarks, and there's little reason to think that individuals can. "

" Signing up to be an organ donor should be at least as easy as downloading a song to your iPhone. "

" Economists discount any factors that would not influence the thinking of a rational person. "

" How can government reduce the frequency and the severity of future catastrophes? Companies that have the potential to create significant harm must be required to pay for the costs they inflict, either before or after the fact. Economists agree on this general approach. The problem is in putting such a policy into effect. "

" Coining a term is not the same as creating a field! "

" When it comes to my health, I would rather my doctor base her decisions on science rather than what she, or some lawyer, thinks will stand up in court. "

" Many Americans say they want to be organ donors, but they just don't get around to acting on their intentions. Helping these potential good Samaritans overcome their inertia could prolong thousands of lives a year. "

" Claiming that Social Security benefits are safe may sound naive, but my view is actually quite cynical. I believe that as long as the elderly continue to vote in large numbers, no Congress will renege on promised payouts for those already eligible to receive benefits. "

" As both a consumer and producer of newspaper articles, I have no beef with pay walls. But before signing up, I read the fine print. "