Richard H Thaler - Misbehaving- The Making of Behavioral Economics (epub)

had written plenty of other strong papers, so my stalling did not cost him tenure.
In time, Amos was satisfied.
In writing this book I took Amos’s note to Oren seriously. The book is not the
sort you might expect an economics professor to write. It is neither a treatise nor
a polemic. Of course there will be discussions of research, but there will also be
anecdotes, (possibly) funny stories, and even the odd joke.
Danny on my best qualities
One day in early 2001, I was visiting Danny Kahneman at his home in Berkeley.
We were in his living room schmoozing, as we often do. Then Danny suddenly
remembered he had an appointment for a telephone call with Roger Lowenstein,
a journalist who was writing an article about my work for the New York Times
Magazine. Roger, the author of the well-known book When Genius Failed,
among others, naturally wanted to talk to my old friend Danny. Here was a
quandary. Should I leave the room, or listen in? “Stay,” Danny said, “this could
be fun.”
The interview started. Hearing a friend tell an old story about you is not an
exciting activity, and hearing someone praise you is always awkward. I picked
up something to read and my attention drifted—until I heard Danny say: “Oh,
the best thing about Thaler, what really makes him special, is that he is lazy.”
What? Really? I would never deny being lazy, but did Danny think that my
laziness was my single best quality? I started waving my hands and shaking my
head madly but Danny continued, extolling the virtues of my sloth. To this day,
Danny insists it was a high compliment. My laziness, he claims, means I only
work on questions that are intriguing enough to overcome this default tendency
of avoiding work. Only Danny could turn my laziness into an asset.
But there you have it. Before reading further you should bear in mind that this
book has been written by a certifiably lazy man. The upside is that, according to
Danny, I will only include things that are interesting, at least to me.
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* While Amos was alive, a well-known joke among psychologists was that he made possible a one-item
IQ test: the sooner you realized he was smarter than you, the smarter you were.