Integrating Psychology with Economics | Q&A with Hersh Shefrin & Shlomo Benartzi

This weekend is a big one for behavioral economics. This morning, Richard Thaler, laureate of The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017, has presented his prize lecture “From Cashews to Nudges: The Evolution of Behavioral Economics” in The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

And this Sunday will be the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, Prof. Thaler will finally receive his well-deserved Nobel prize.

To celebrate this occasion, I am honored to share with you my interview with two of the best co-authors of Prof. Thaler — Hersh Shefrin and Shlomo Benartzi.

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Introductions

Prof. Shefrin is the Mario Belotti Chair in the Department of Finance at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. Together with Thaler, they have developed one of the most influential behavioral model of all, the Planner-doer model.

Prof. Benartzi is the co-founder of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at UCLA Anderson School of Management. He was a Ph.D. student of Thaler back in the 90s, and they have since collaborated in numerous classic research, for example in the behavioral explanations of the equity premium puzzle and nudging.

I am fortunate enough to have a chance to interview them back in October. The Chinese version of these two interviews can be found in the December 2017 issue of Hong Kong Economic Journal Monthly. And this is the English version.

(Please keep in mind that the two interviews were conducted separately. I have edited them together for better reading and learning experiences. All mistakes are mine.)

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