A masterful nonfiction book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Richard Saylor! Richard Saylor - "Behavioral Economics Strikes Back" Summary and Comments
We are pleased to present "Behavioral Economics Strikes Back," written by Richard Saylor and translated by Mami Endo, published by Hayakawa Shobo in 2019.
Let's take a quick look at the book.
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This is how a new discipline was born!
Behind the Scenes with the Author of the Nobel Prize in Economics
An economics heretic works with psychologists, makes friends, and fights back against economists!
Here is everything about the birth of behavioral economics that led to the Nobel Prize.
The genius who invented behavioral economics is also a rare storyteller."
--Daniel Kahneman (Nobel Laureate in Economics. Fast & Slow)
"The story of a pioneer who introduced humaneness into economics and gently encouraged better behavior by establishing 'nudges' in policy."
--Fumio Ohtake (Professor, Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University)
A must-read for anyone interested in modern economics."
--Masahiro Nenei (Professor, Graduate School of Kyoto University, from the commentary of this book)
A documentary on creative destruction. Here is intellectual entertainment of the highest order, for those who don't care about economics."
--Ken Kusunoki (Professor at Hitotsubashi University. Competitive Strategy as a Story")
Behavioral Economics: A Generation of Behavioral Economists! A Complete Picture of the Troubles and Excitement of the Birth of a New Field as Revealed through the Trial and Error of a Scholar's Life."
--Hiroo Yamagata (Critic, Translator)
The life story of "lazy" Professor Saylor is a history of the development of behavioral economics, a field that confronts "human irrationality.
--Tatsuhiko Yoshizaki (Kanbei), Chief Economist, Sojitz Research Institute
'Should be read. There is no better book as a guide to behavioral economics."
--Robert J. Shiller (Nobel Laureate in Economics. The Animal Spirit)
It's a book so nakedly funny that it's hard to believe it was written by a college professor."
--Michael Lewis (Author. Moneyball)
There are a lot of words of praise for this book, but let's look at the book in more detail.
Conventional economics has assumed the image of a perfectly rational person, but is there no such person on earth? With fundamental doubts, the "lazy" economist meets a group of psychologists who explore the irrationality of decision-making.
His collaboration with them eventually led to the new discipline of "behavioral economics," but it also marked the beginning of a long battle with the academic establishment. ...... A heretic who won the Nobel Prize in Economics talks about the trajectory of his academic life and his joys and sorrows (Volume 1).The author, who has steadily accumulated research results on cognitive biases, defies the accusations swirling around the old-fashioned economics community and proposes a revolutionary method called "nudge," which uses these findings to guide people toward more rational behavior. How can behavioral economics, which has now been incorporated into the policies of Japan and other countries, change the world? This is a nonfiction book that has received critical acclaim for its unparalleled humor and storytelling that depicts the entire history of this controversial discipline. Commentary by Masahiro Nei (lower volume)
From "Behavioral Economics Strikes Back" by Richard Saylor, translated by Mami Endo, Hayakawa Shobo
As this commentary shows, the basic assumption of conventional economics was that human beings operate from an economically rational point of view. Economics has built up advanced academic theories based on this assumption.
However, the author and a group of other behavioral economists question this and suggest, "Are humans really that rational in their behavior, or do they often act in a clearly irrational manner?
The claims of behavioral economists that could disrupt the assumptions of conventional economics naturally came as a great shock to many economists.
That is where the controversy between them and behavioral economists began.
This book provides a history of such a battle between economists and behavioral economists.
Author Richard Saylor had this to say about the book
People behave in ways that are far removed from what economic models prescribe. For the past 40 years since I was a graduate student, I have been thinking only about the myriad of such stories.
However, I do not believe that there is anything wrong with people's behavior. We are all just human beings - homo sapiens. The problem is rather with the models used by economists.
In that model, instead of Homo sapiens, a fictitious person called "Homo economicus" is set up. Since "Homoeconomicus" is a long word, I call it "econ" for short. Compared to the fictional world with econ, humans behave a lot more wrongly. That means that economic models make a lot of wrong predictions. Sometimes the economic model's predictions have serious consequences that go beyond upsetting the students.
Hayakawa Shobo, Richard Saylor, translated by Mami Endo, Behavioral Economics Strikes Back, p. 22
Some line breaks have been made.
In this book, I will recount how behavioral economics was born and developed, as far as I have seen it. Not all of the research discussed in this book was done by me (as you know, I am very lazy and don't do that).
However, I have been present at the dawn of behavioral economics and have played a part in creating a new trend. In what follows, I will follow Amos's last words and present a variety of stories, but my main goal is to tell you how behavioral economics came to be and to explain what we have learned in the process.
Naturally, I clashed many times with traditional economists who defended traditional methods. It was not all fun and games, but just like an accident on a trip, it is a memory now, and behavioral economics has become stronger through the struggle against the traditionalists.
Hayakawa Shobo, Richard Saylor, translated by Mami Endo, Behavioral Economics Strikes Back, p. 31
Some line breaks have been made.
This " We are all just humans, or homo sapiensI like the word "good".
As a Jodo Shinshu priest, this term is very familiar to me. This is because Shinran Shonin, the founder of Jodo Shinshu, often used the term "ordinary person" (meaning a person who is ordinary or mediocre). Whether or not we can say, "I am just an ordinary person," without thinking ourselves as if we are some kind of superior human being, and whether or not we can truly believe that, is an important aspect of Shinran Shonin's teachings.
The Jodo Shinshu way of thinking is one that discourages the rational understanding of things, the way of trying to ascend to a higher level by doing so, and the way of trying to grasp the world by accumulating logic and orderly reasoning.
Shinran Shonin admonishes, "A human being can do anything depending on the circumstances. It is beyond reason," Shinran Shonin admonishes.
I have been hearing such teachings since I was a student, so Richard Saylor's words seemed to come easily to me.
Thinking everything rationally, understanding the economy through mathematical formulas, and trying to apply it in practice does not work so well. If it were possible, shouldn't the economy run better? If it doesn't work, then maybe the premise was wrong in the first place.
So you can learn about the author's years of research and the path taken by a group of behavioral economists.
As mentioned in the introduction to the book, this piece is dramatic and very easy to read.
Even those who do not know much about economics will enjoy reading this book.
It also gave me a very interesting perspective on Marx, which I have been updating on my blog. This was a much appreciated piece. I would highly recommend this work.
The above is "Richard Saylor's "Behavioral Economics Strikes Back" - Recommended to learn what makes behavioral economics different from conventional economics.
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