RICHARD H. THALER



Graduate School of Business
University of Chicago
1101 E. 58th St.
Chicago IL 60637
312-702-5208
Fax: 312-702-0458
E-mail: thaler@gsb.uchicago.edu

PERSONAL DATA

Born September 12, 1945 in East Orange, New Jersey

EDUCATION

Ph.D. University of Rochester, 1974

M.A. University of Rochester, 1970

B.A. Case Western Reserve University, 1967
Dissertation Title: "The Value of Saving A Life: A Market Estimate" (Supervisor: Sherwin Rosen)

CURRENT POSITIONS

Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics, and Director of the Center for Decision Research, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.

Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research (co-director -with Robert Shiller- of the Behavioral Economics Project, funded by the Russell Sage Foundation)

PRIOR EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSIGNMENTS

RESEARCH GRANTS

OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

PUBLICATIONS

Books

  1. Quasi-Rational Economics, Russell Sage Foundation, 1991.

  2. The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life, Free Press, 1991 (Princeton University Press paperback, 1993).

  3. Advances in Behavioral Finance, editor. Russell Sage Foundation, 1993.

Published Papers

  1. "The Value of Saving A Life: Evidence From The Labor Market," (with Sherwin Rosen) in Nester Terleckyj, ed. Household Production and Consumption, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1975.

  2. "Design Requirements for Criminal Justice Research and Resource Management/Planning Systems," (with Jeffrey Lasky) in Proceedings of the Second International Symposium of Criminal Justice Information and Statistics Systems, 1976.

  3. "On Optimal Speed Limits," in Henry Manne and Roger Miller, eds. Auto Safety Regulation: The Cure or the Problem? 1976.

  4. "Some Results of Research on the Value of Saving Lives," (with Sherwin Rosen) in Proceedings of a Workshop on the Measure of Intangible Environmental Impacts, Electric Power Institute, 1977.

  5. "An Econometric Analysis of Property Crime: Interaction Between Police and Criminals," Journal of Public Economics, 1977.

  6. "A Note on the Value of Crime Control: Evidence from the Property Market," Journal of Urban Economics, 1978.

  7. "Sticky Wages and Implicit Contracts: A Transactional Approach," (with David Mayers) Economic Inquiry, October 1979.

  8. "Discounting with Fiscal Constraints: Why Discounting is Always Right," Defense Management Journal, October 1979.

  9. "Toward A Positive Theory of Consumer Choice," Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 1980, reprinted in Breit and Hochman, eds. Readings in Microeconomics, 3rd edition, 1985, and in Howard Kunreuther, ed. Risk: A Seminar Series, IIASA, 1981.

  10. "Interpreting a Rationality in Hierarchical Games," (with H.M. Shefrin), Economic Letters, 1980.

  11. "Judgment and Decision Making Under Uncertainty: What Economists Can Learn from Psychology," Risk Analysis in Agriculture: Research and Educational Developments, Proceedings of a seminar sponsored by the Western Regional Research Project W-149, Tucson, Arizona, June 1980.

  12. "An Economic Theory of Self-Control," (with H.M. Shefrin) Journal of Political Economy, April 1981.

  13. "Maximization and Self-Control," a commentary on "Maximization Theory in Behavioral Psychology," by Rachlin, Battalio, Kagel and Green, in The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1981.

  14. "Some Empirical Evidence on Dynamic Inconsistency," Economic Letters, 1981.

  15. "Public Policy Toward Life Saving: Should Consumer Preferences Rule?" (with William Gould), Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 1982.

  16. "Precommitment and the Value of a Life," in Michael Jones-Lee, ed. The Value of Life and Safety, North-Holland Press, 1982.

  17. "Transaction Utility Theory," Proceedings of the Association for Consumer Research Conference, San Francisco, 1983.

  18. "Illusions, Mirages, and Public Policy," Public Interest, Fall 1983, reprinted in Hal Arkes and Kenneth Hammond, eds. Judgment and Decision Making: An Interdisciplinary Reader, Cambridge University Press, 1986, and in V.T. Covello et al., eds. Environmental Impact, Assessment, Technology Assessment and Risk Analysis, NATO ASI Series, 1983.

  19. "An Economic Analysis of Multiyear Procurement," (with Kathy Utgoff) in Gerald R. McNichols, ed. Operations Research in Cost Analysis, Operations Research Society of America, 1984.

  20. "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, 1985.

  21. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?" (with Werner F. M. De Bondt), Journal of Finance, 1985.

  22. "The Relevance of Quasi Rationality in Competitive Markets," (with Thomas Russell), American Economic Review, 1985.

  23. "Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics," (with Daniel Kahneman and Jack Knetsch), Journal of Business, 1986.

  24. "The Psychology and Economics Conference Handbook," (commentary on papers by H. Simon, H. Einhorn and R. Hogarth, and A. Tversky and D. Kahneman), Journal of Business, 1986.

  25. "Fairness as a Constraint on Profit-Seeking: Entitlements in the Market," (with Daniel Kahneman and Jack Knetsch), American Economic Review, 1986.

  26. "Further Evidence on Investor Overreaction and Stock Market Seasonality," (with Werner F. M. DeBondt), Journal of Finance, 1987.

  27. "The Psychology of Choice and the Assumptions of Economics," in Alvin Roth, ed. Laboratory Experiments in Economics: Six Points of View, Cambridge University Press, 1987.

  28. "The Behavioral Life-Cycle Hypothesis" (with H. M. Shefrin) Economic Inquiry, 1988.

  29. "Gambling with the House Money and Trying to Break Even: The Effects of Prior Outcomes in Risky Choice" (with Eric Johnson), Management Science, June 1990.

  30. "Do Security Analysts Overreact?" (with Werner De Bondt) American Economic Review, May 1990

  31. "Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem" (with Daniel Kahneman and Jack Knetsch) Journal of Political Economy, December 1990. Reprinted in: Recent Developments in Experimental Economics, John Hey and Graham Loomes, ed. 1992.

  32. "Investor Sentiment and the Closed-end Fund Puzzle," with Charles Lee and Andrei Shleifer. Journal of Finance, March 1991.

  33. "Economic Analysis and the Psychology of Utility: Applications to Compensation Policy" (with Daniel Kahneman) American Economic Review, 81, May 1991, 341-346.

  34. "Window Dressing by Pension Fund Managers," (with Josef Lakonishok, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny) American Economic Review, 81, May 1991, 227-231.

  35. "How to Get Real People to Save," in Marvin Kosters, ed. Personal Savings, Consumption, and Tax Policy, American Enterprise Institute: Washington D.C., 1992.

  36. "Saving and Mental Accounting," in George Loewenstein and Jon Elster, Choices over Time, Russell Sage Foundation, 1992.

  37. "Yes, Discounts on Closed-End Funds Are a Sentiment Index," and "Summing Up," (replies to Chen, Kan and Miller) (with N. Chopra, C. Lee, and A. Shleifer) Journal of Finance, June 1993.

  38. "Psychology and Savings Policies" American Economic Review, May 1994.

  39. "College and University Endowment Funds,: Why Not 100% Equities," (with J. Peter Williamson) Journal of Portfolio Management, Fall 1994.

  40. "Financial Decision Making in Markets and Firms," (with Werner F. M. De Bondt) in R. Jarrow, V Maksimovic, and W. T. Ziemba (eds.) Finance, Series of Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science, Elsevier-North Holland, 1995.

  41. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," (with Shlomo Benartzi) Quarterly Journal of Economics February, 1995

  42. "Price Reactions to Dividend Initiations and Omissions: Overreaction or Drift? (with Roni Michaely and Kent Womack) Journal of Finance June, 1995.

  43. "How to Evaluate Savings Programs: Discussion of Papke, Peterson and Poterba" in Papers in the Economics of Aging edited by David A. Wise (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) 1995.

  44. "Doing Economics without Homo Economicus" in Exploring the Foundations of Research in Economics: How Should Economists Do Economics? edited by Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels.

  45. "Caveat Compounder: A Warning about Using the CRSP Equally Weighted Index to Compute Long-Run Excess Returns" (with Linda Canina, Roni Michaely, and Kent Womack) forthcoming, Journal of Finance, 1997.

  46. "Irving Fisher: Modern Behavioral Economist" forthcoming, American Economic Review, May 1997.

  47. "The Effect of Myopia and Loss Aversion on Risk Taking: An Experimental Test" (with Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman, and Alan Schwartz) forthcoming, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1997.

  48. "Labor Supply of New York City Cab Drivers: One Day at a Time," (with Colin Camerer, Linda Babcock, and George Loewenstein) forthcoming, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1997.

  49. "Anomalies" Articles Published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives

    First Series:

    Second Series: