Monday, April 1, 2024

Famous Behavioural Economist Daniel Kahneman Passed Away (1934-2024)

 “everything I’ve done has been collaborative.”

The famous behavioural economics Prof Daniel Kahneman passed away few days ago. He was aged 90. His many great insightful and pathbreaking works has paved many new dimensions in economic analysis.

He was awrded with the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for his works - “for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty”

Different thoughts of people on his life and works:

He wrote in his popular 2011 book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.”

Dr. Kahneman presented his ideas to a general audience in “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” which distinguished between two modes of thought: System 1, in which the mind, acting quickly, relies on intuition, immediate impressions and emotional reactions; and System 2, in which the mind, slowing down, functions more rationally and analytically and is able to correct errors made by System 1.

“His central message could not be more important,” the Harvard psychologist and author Steven Pinker told The Guardian in 2014, “namely, that human reason left to its own devices is apt to engage in a number of fallacies and systematic errors, so if we want to make better decisions in our personal lives and as a society, we ought to be aware of these biases and seek workarounds. That’s a powerful and important discovery.” More here.

Princeton University obituary 

His major works at Econlib.

Nobel Committee report on his works.

"Economics is a notoriously imperialist discipline: economists are more prone to colonising other scholarly fields than to be colonised by them. The single biggest exception was Daniel Kahneman, the social psychologist who was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial prize in economic science for how he revolutionised the field." more here.