Won Nobel for work on behavior’s effect on economics
SAN FRANCISCO — Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in economics for his insights into how neurological biases influence decision making, died Wednesday at the age of 90.
Mr. Kahneman and his longtime collaborator Amos Tversky reshaped the field of economics, which prior to their work mostly assumed that people were “rational actors” capable of clearly evaluating choices such as which car to buy or which job to take. The pair’s research focused on how much decision-making is shaped by subterranean quirks and mental shortcuts that can distort our thoughts in irrational yet predictable ways.
Mr. Kahneman’s partner, Barbara Tversky — the widow of Amos Tversky — confirmed his death to The Associated Press. Tversky, herself a Stanford emerita professor of psychology, said the family is not disclosing the location or cause of death.
Mr. Kahneman’s decadeslong partnership with Tversky began in 1969. The two began studying decision making in 1974 and quickly hit upon the central insight that people react far more intensely to losses than to equivalent gains. This is the now-common notion of “loss aversion.” Combined with other findings, the pair developed a theory of risky choice they eventually named “prospect theory.”
Mr. Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002 for these and other contributions that ended up underpinning the discipline now known as behavioral economics. Economists say Tversky would certainly have shared the prize had he not died in 1996. The Nobel is not awarded posthumously.