What We’re Reading The Winner’s Curse

FOR THE TRAIN OR ON THE PLANE

In “The Winner’s Curse,” Richard H. Thaler challenges the received economic wisdom by revealing many of the paradoxes that abound in the most painstakingly constructed transactions. He presents literate and often funny examples of such anomalies as why the winners at auctions are often the real losers, why gamblers bet on long shots at the end of a losing day and why shoppers will save on one appliance only to pass up the identical savings on another. He also demonstrates that markets do not always operate with the traplike efficiency we impute to them.