Book Description

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.

Customer Reviews (14)

Very interesting
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.

Behavioral economics for the real world.
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.

Highly Recommended!
We highly recommend this classic of economic literature, one of the first (more or less) accessible presentations of the evidence against economic rationality. Economists have assumed, conventionally, that economic choice rests on a foundation of rationality. For instance, economists tend to think that people will put the same value on two mathematically identical offers. Yet laboratory experiments have proven what everyday experience suggests: people are not quite rational. Author Richard H. Thaler, a founding father of behavioral economics, presents convincing exhibits to make the case that the assumption of economic rationality is an awfully big pill to swallow. Stylistically, his book strikes a neat balance between accessibility and obscurity. A reader will need a certain amount of schooling in economics and a great deal of patience with academic prose to wade through every word of every chapter, although the payoff is substantial. However, it is possible for the impatient reader to get the gist by reading the introduction, the first page or two of each chapter and the epilogue. And even that is eminently worthwhile.

by an economist, for an economist
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

Intriguing for the academic mind
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! ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from American Review of Canadian Studies, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2005. The length of the article is 1166 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Paradox of American Unionism: Why Americans Like Unions More Than Canadians Do But Join Much Less.(Book Review)
Author: James W. Russell
Publication: American Review of Canadian Studies (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 35Issue: 3Page: 547(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Customer Reviews (1)

Garciadiego and Problems with Godel's Theorem
This very important book seems to have been overlooked by everyone from Chaitin on down.The gist of it is that the paradoxes on which modern mathematics depends, were not paradoxes at all--they weren't anything at all, they were letters pulled out of a bag.Of course, this raises the question of what is the implication for many theories we now consider internally consistent.Many things you will read here will make you open your eyes VERY wide.Above all, his history of Richard's paradox reveals not only that it was not a paradox, but also, Nagel and Newman's misstatement of it in their Godel book once again raises the question of how this piece of nonsense figures in Godel's theorem, that is, is there a flaw in Godel's theorem?Here is my take on it:

Ryskamp, John Henry, "Godel's Theorem Disproved" (January 19, 2005). http://ssrn.com/abstract=651382 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

engaging? no, but made alot of sense.
This book is not very fun to read, but required reading for the poor fool who really wants to know why democracy works well even if most citizens are dumb and apathetic.

Neuman's "key finding" is this: "the mass public is stratified along a sophistication continuum.On most issues, the great majority of citizens are inattentive and uninformed.But, as with many social phenomena of this sort, there is a natural and effective division of labor."

The "paradox of mass politics" (not to give it away, but you really ought to know if you're thinking about plunking down your pocket change) is the tension between a highly fluid and effectively functioning democracy in the aggregate, and the individual voter whose political sophistication is not so spectacular--nor need it be. (Just look at George W.) So, really, if one believes that voters needn't be intelligent in order for democracy to work, there is no paradox at all.The paradox is, as EE Schattschneider observed in 1960, contrived by intellectuals and political theorists who place very high demands on democracy and its publics.In Schattschneider's words, "The whole theory of knowledge underlying these concepts of democracy is false-it proves too much.It proves not only that democracy is impossible; it proves that life itself is impossible.Everybody has to accommodate himself to the fact that he deals daily with an incredible number of matters about which he knows very little.This is true of all aspects of life, not merely politics." As Schattschneider would say, "The compulsion to know everything is the road to insanity."

My final thought is this: if you have a compulsion to know everything, read this book.It is very informative and rich with empirical science, charts, graphs, and the sorts of data that make Neuman's case well.It is a little more filling than the average reader's appetite, but if you're on that road already, go there. ... Read more

Book Description

More Americans trace their ancestry to Germany than to any other country. Arguably, German Americans form America's largest ethnic group. Yet they have a remarkably low profile today, reflecting a dramatic, twentieth-century retreat from German-American identity. In this age of multiculturalism, why have German Americans gone into ethnic eclipse--and where have they ended up? Becoming Old Stock represents the first in-depth exploration of that question. The book describes how German Philadelphians reinvented themselves in the early twentieth century, especially after World War I brought a nationwide anti-German backlash.

Using quantitative methods, oral history, and a cultural analysis of written sources, the book explores how, by the 1920s, many middle-class and Lutheran residents had redefined themselves in "old-stock" terms--as "American" in opposition to southeastern European "new immigrants." It also examines working-class and Catholic Germans, who came to share a common identity with other European immigrants, but not with newly arrived black Southerners.

Becoming Old Stock sheds light on the way German Americans used race, American nationalism, and mass culture to fashion new identities in place of ethnic ones. It is also an important contribution to the growing literature on racial identity among European Americans. In tracing the fate of one of America's largest ethnic groups, Becoming Old Stock challenges historians to rethink the phenomenon of ethnic assimilation and to explore its complex relationship to American pluralism.

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, published by American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) on March 1, 1995. The length of the article is 4294 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Results of a study indicate the existence of the paradox of the contented working woman among female administrators. This paradox states that job satisfaction in women with lower salaries is comparable to that of higher-paid men. The Job Descriptive Index was used to measure job satisfaction in 143 women administrators and 371 men administrators in 106 NCAA institutions. Previous research focused on marital and other relationships of NCAA administrators, but did not examine job satisfaction in middle and first-line administrators.

Citation Details
Title: The paradox of the contented working woman in intercollegiate athletics administration.
Author: Janet B. Parks
Publication: Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (Refereed)
Date: March 1, 1995
Publisher: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD)
Volume: v66Issue: n1Page: p73(7)

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Book Description
Zsuszi Robozthe person is a unique mixture of British and exotic; Zsuzsi Roboz the artist is a unique mixture of Classical and Romantic. Though she was born and raised in Hungary, a dramatic series of events brought her to Britain in her teens, and all her subsequent life has been spent there. Her art is in once sense intensely Romantic, concerned with the mysterious and magical life of the imagination. But it is all founded on a finely disciplined grasp of classic draughtsmanship, acquired from the best sources: she was one of Annigoni's favourite pupils. This book tells her story, its agonies and ecstasies, and traces the roots of her passionate art. Along the way she has known and portrayed many extraordinary men and women, especially those - the musicians, the dancers, the actors, the painters, the girls of the Windmill - who have been one way and another connected with the arts. Her portrait drawings range from Spanish gypsies and Croatian peasants to aristocratic grandees and the great beaut ... Read more

Book Description
This volume shows Bertrand Russell in transition from a neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian philosopher to an analytic philosopher of the highest rank. During this period, his research centered on writing The Principles of Mathematics. The volume draws together previously unpublished drafts which shed light on Russell's struggle to accept Cantor's notion of continuum as well as Russell's infinite ordinal and cardinal numbers. It also includes the first version of Russell's Paradox. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Profound Insights into a Profound Thinker
I am very impressed with this book, it allows us a view into Russell's thinking and personal research notes as he struggled with his theories of knowledge and logical atomism.

What is most interesting is to see his thought process'behind the scenes' of some of his greatest ideas.

It is also good to have his famous essay 'On Denoting' finally available in book form.

For all lovers of this subject and fans of this man's thinking, this book is indispensible.

Betrand Russell: pre-eminent pacifist and socialist
World War One was an epoch-making event which transformed the philosophy of Bertrand Russell from based mainly on logic, mathematics and epistemology to haumanitarian issues such as pacificism, freedom and therole of the state. "Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell: Pacifism andRevolution, 1916-18" provides glimpses into this transition andelucidates Russell's main arguments for pacifism and socialism: "Nogood to the community, of any sort or kind, results from the privateownership of land. If men were reasonable they would decree that it shouldcease tomorrow..." As private property is protected by the State, andthe fraud and plunder that constitute property are sanctioned bylegislation and enforced by weapons and war, Russell argued that the Stateis therefor a great evil and its functions must be taken over bycommunity-based cooperatives and worker's syndicates. Fascinating,provocative and necessary reading. ... Read more