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.
Thanks to everyone who came and many thanks for the very warm welcome at the end. Truly touched. https://t.co/aXMax86gDS
— Richard H Thaler (@R_Thaler) December 8, 2017
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.
Q4
Now let’s turn to Prof. Benartzi. Prof. Thaler wrote in “Misbehaving” that, during your day as his Ph.D. student at Cornell University, you were “an important solution to my laziness problem”. He also described you as “high-energy and impossible to discourage”.
Why would you choose Thaler as your advisor? What do you think about his self-proclaimed “laziness” when you work with him? And in what way has his personality helped you develop as a successful academic?
Benartzi: To be frank, Thaler was the only mentor I wanted to work with, period. Not only he is brilliant, he is also an amazing mentor. And since I guess I cannot be discouraged, he never had the opportunity to be lazy when working together.
