Economics
Nobel Laurels for an Odd Couple
The economics prize goes to an outsider psychologist and a traditionalist who espouse conflicting theories on rationality
This article is for subscribers only.
Daniel Kahneman isn't an economist, and that may be one big reason why he received a share of the 2002 Nobel prize in economics. Kahneman, 68, is a cognitive psychologist, and that training has allowed him to see how people really behave -- not in the ultrarational manner that the textbooks say they should.
According to Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky, his longtime collaborator, homo economicus is shortsighted, overconfident in his predictive skills, and irrationally prone to buying insurance on cheap home appliances. In short, a lot like your dumb brother-in-law.