Daniel Kahneman: Pioneer of Behavioral Economics | Generated by AI
Question: Who is Daniel Kahneman?
Answer:
Daniel Kahneman (1934–2024) was an Israeli-American psychologist and behavioral economist widely regarded as the founder of behavioral economics. He was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (the only psychologist to ever win it) for his groundbreaking work integrating psychological insights into economic theory, particularly regarding human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty.
Key contributions:
- Co-developed Prospect Theory (with Amos Tversky in 1979), which explains how people make decisions involving risk and why they systematically deviate from rational choice predicted by classical economics (e.g., people feel losses more intensely than equivalent gains — loss aversion).
- Distinguished between two modes of thinking in his bestselling 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow:
- System 1: Fast, intuitive, emotional, automatic
- System 2: Slow, deliberate, logical, effortful
- Identified numerous cognitive biases (anchoring, availability heuristic, overconfidence, etc.) that affect judgment.
Notable facts:
- Born in Tel Aviv, raised in France during WWII, later moved to Israel.
- Long collaboration with Amos Tversky (until Tversky’s death in 1996); Tversky would have shared the Nobel had he lived.
- Professor emeritus at Princeton University.
- Died on March 27, 2024, at age 90.
His work profoundly influenced economics, psychology, finance, policy-making (e.g., “nudge” theory), and everyday understanding of why humans often act irrationally.
- Daniel Kahneman – Nobel Prize biography
- Thinking, Fast and Slow – Book summary (Princeton)
- Obituary – The New York Times (March 2024)