Richard Thaler Quotes

When an economist says the evidence is "mixed," he or she means that theory says one thing and data says the opposite.

My mantra is if you want to help people accomplish some goal, make it easy.

There's no reason to think that markets always drive people to what's good for them.

People exaggerate their own skills. they are optimistic about their prospects and overconfident about their guesses, including which managers to pick.

Recall that people like to do what most people think it is right to do; recall too that people like to do what most people actually do.

The lesson from behavioral economics is that people only save if it's automatic.

So, what's a nudge? A nudge is some small feature of the environment that attracts our attention and alters our behavior.

Investors must keep in mind that there's a difference between a good company and a good stock. After all, you can buy a good car but pay too much for it.

A good rule of thumb is to assume that everything matters.

I think the people who've been the most overconfident in our business in the last decade have been the people that called themselves risk managers.

There are cases when I can make myself better off by restricting my future choices and commit myself to a specific course of action.

I don't go by the ratings. I buy wine that tastes good. Statistically, anybody's ability to predict what will be a good wine a decade from now is limited.

Why tie to gold? Why not 1982 Bordeaux?

I'm all for empowerment and education, but the empirical evidence is that it doesn't work. That's why I say make it easy.

The assumption that everybody will figure out how much they have to save and then will just implement that plan is obviously preposterous.

If people just put away what's left at the end of the month, that's a recipe for failure.

Most economists, including me, agree that longevity insurance would make sense for a lot of people.

I think one lesson we have to learn is that there's a lot more risk than we're giving credit to, a lot more what economist calls systematic risk.

I think we also have learned the lesson that we have to have better incentive structures.

Every American worker should be able to save for retirement via payroll deductions.

Most people start claiming benefits within a year of when they become eligible, although benefits increase substantially if they wait.

It would be much more consumer friendly for them to beep you when you swipe your card that says, uh-oh you're over your limit, are you sure you want to use that?

There's a second component of a good savings plan, which is something that a colleague of mine called Schlomo Benartzi and I developed many years ago, that we call "save more tomorrow."