Richard H. Thaler
Richard Thaler chronicles his decades-long intellectual battle to replace economic models of rational "Econs" with a realistic, psychologically grounded science of predictably fallible "Humans."
Traditional economic theory relies on the flaw that people act as perfectly rational Econs, whereas Thaler's career demonstrated that real economy actors are fallible Humans with predictable cognitive biases.
Standard models dismiss subtle contextual influences as supposedly irrelevant factors, but these psychological cues systematically alter consumer choices and market outcomes.
Prospect theory reveals that individuals evaluate choices based on gains and losses relative to a reference point, experiencing the pain of a loss much more intensely than the pleasure of an equal gain.