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Behavioral Economics: Past, Present, and Future By Richard H. Thaler
In recent years there has been growing interest in the mixture of psychology
and economics that has come to be known as “behavioral economics.” As is true
with many seemingly overnight success stories, this one has been brewing for quite
a while. My first paper on the subject was published in 1980, hot on the heels of
Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) blockbuster on prospect theory, and there were
earlier forerunners, most notably Simon (1955, 1957) and Katona (1951, 1953).
The rise of behavioral economics is sometimes characterized as a kind of
paradigm-
shifting revolution within economics, but I think that is a misreading of
the history of economic thought. It would be more accurate to say that the methodology
of behavioral economics returns economic thinking to the way it began, with
Adam Smith, and continued through the time of Irving Fisher and John Maynard
Keynes in the 1930s.
In spite of this early tradition within the field, the behavioral approach to economics
met with considerable resistance within the profession until relatively
recently. In this essay I begin by documenting some of the historical precedents
for utilizing a psychologically realistic depiction of the representative agent. I then
turn to a discussion of the many arguments that have been put forward in favor of
retaining the idealized model of Homo economicus even in the face of apparently
contradictory evidence. I argue that such arguments have been refuted, both theoretically
and empirically, including in the realm where we might expect rationality
to abound: the financial markets. As such, it is time to move on to a more constructive
approach.
On the theory side, the basic problem is that we are relying on one theory to
accomplish two rather different goals, namely to characterize optimal behavior
and to predict actual behavior. We should not abandon the first type of theories as
they are essential building blocks for any kind of economic analysis, but we must
augment them with additional descriptive theories that are derived from data rather
than axioms.
As for empirical work, the behavioral approach offers the opportunity to develop
better models of economic behavior by incorporating insights from other social science
disciplines. To illustrate this more constructive approach, I focus on one strong prediction
made by the traditional model, namely that there is a set of factors that will have no effect
on economic behavior. I refer to these as supposedly irrelevant
factors or SIFs. Contrary to the predictions of traditional theory, SIFs matter; in
fact, in some situations the single most important determinant of behavior is a SIF.
Finally, I turn to the future. Spoiler alert: I predict that behavioral economics will
eventually disappear.
* University of Chicago, 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 (e-mail: richard.thaler@chicagobooth.
edu). This article draws upon my recent book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, which
contains a more extensive bibliography, and a long but incomplete list of acknowledgments.
† Presidential Address delivered at the one hundred twenty-eighth meeting of the American Economic
Association, January 4, 2016, San Francisco, CA. Go to http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.106.7.1577 to visit the article
page for additional materials and author disclosure statement.
2016行为经济学的过去-现在-将来-Thaler.pdf
(529.64 KB)
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