Rating: 
Summary: Approach Only With Game Theory Background
Review: "The Winner's Curse" is a collection of academic articles Richard Thaler wrote for academic literature. And while Thaler thinks like a good economist, unfortunately, he writes like a good economist (that is, badly). This is a helpful book if you are interested in a rigorous mathematical treatment of economic anomalies and have a more than cursory understanding of game theory. If not, check out "Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds" instead.
Rating:
Summary: Approach Only With Game Theory Background
Review: "The Winner's Curse" is a collection of academic articles Richard Thaler wrote for academic literature. And while Thaler thinks like a good economist, unfortunately, he writes like a good economist (that is, badly). This is a helpful book if you are interested in a rigorous mathematical treatment of economic anomalies and have a more than cursory understanding of game theory. If not, check out "Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds" instead.
Rating:
Summary: Approach Only With Game Theory Background
Review: "The Winner's Curse" is a collection of academic articles Richard Thaler wrote for academic literature. And while Thaler thinks like a good economist, unfortunately, he writes like a good economist (that is, badly). This is a helpful book if you are interested in a rigorous mathematical treatment of economic anomalies and have a more than cursory understanding of game theory. If not, check out "Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds" instead.
Rating: 
Summary: by an economist, for an economist
Review: as an amateur economist grown increasingly dissatisfied w/ the failures of available theories, i was hopeful that this book would expound more on why markets fail. in some ways it did (in a very drab and boring language), although its coverage of financial markets (my interest) was all too brief and incomplete---the coverage of losers' outperformance of winners in equities was by far (IMHO) the best section of the book, but as good as that section was, the coverage of foreign exchange fluctuations was a failure. ---soros did a much better job of this.there is some good material in this book, and i would give it 3 stars as a result, but the writing style makes it simply too inaccessible for the average reader. better financial market focus can be found in "reminisces of a stock operator" and "alchemy of finance", which really were accidental breakthroughs in behavioral finance (particularly the former--a gem of a book). rhyno
Rating: 
Summary: Useful introduction to a controversial field
Review: As with any model claiming predictive power, economics rests on a theory of human behavior-specifically, rational choice theory, which posits decisionmakers who are autonomous individuals who make rational choices that maximize their satisfactions. Critics of economics have long complained that rational choice is, at best, an incomplete account of human behavior. The traditional response to that criticism is that rationality is simply an abstraction developed as a useful model of predicting the behavior of large numbers of people and, as such, does not purport to describe real people embedded in a real social order. A theory is properly judged by its predictive power with respect to the phenomena it purports to explain, not by whether it is a valid description of an objective reality. Indeed, important and significant hypotheses often have assumptions that are wildly inaccurate descriptive representations of reality. Accordingly, the relevant question to ask about the assumptions of a theory is not whether they are descriptively realistic, for they never are, but whether they are sufficiently good approximations for the purpose in hand. Until quite recently, empirical research tended to confirm that the rational choice model of human behavior is a good first approximation of how large numbers of people are likely to behave in exchange transactions. Over the last 10-15 years, however, a new school of economic analysis has emerged that challenges the rational choice model precisely on its predictive power. Empirical and laboratory work by cognitive psychologists and experimental economists has identified a growing number of anomalies in which behavior appears to systematically depart from that predicted by rational choice. Some of the more important examples of these decisionmaking biases include: ** Herd behavior: Why do lemmings leap off that cliff in Norway? What explains fads like Beanie Babies and Pokémon? Herd behavior occurs when a decisionmaker imitates the actions of others, while ignoring his own information and judgment with regard to the merits of the underlying decision. ** The status quo bias: All else being equal, decisionmakers favor maintaining the status quo rather than switching to some alternative state. The status quo bias can lead to market failure where decisionmakers' preference for the status quo perpetuates suboptimal practices. The extent to which behavioral economics calls into question more traditional modes of economic analysis remains sharply contested. At the very least, however, it seems clear that attention must be paid to the possibility that behavioral analysis sheds light on policy issues. Richard Thaler is one of the foremost behavioral economists. In this (relatively) accessible introduction to this emerging literature, he collects (and revises) a series of articles he wrote for the Journal of Economic Perspectives. As such, there book reads more like an anthology than a coherent whole. Yet, each of the chapters is highly instructive. More important for the general reader, while the selections are all highly rigorous, Thaler steers clear of the sort of recreational mathematics that plagues so much of modern economics. Of particular interest to lay readers, I suspect, will be the chapters on investing. Thaler offers a highly insightful analysis of the various anomalies in capital market behavior that appear to be inconsistent with the standard economic assumptions built into the efficient capital markets hypothesis and the capital asset pricing model. In sum, a useful introduction to the literature.
Rating: 
Summary: How to make money in a pub?
Review: How rational are human beings or how close to the economic models do they act? This book is a collection of articles by Professor Thaler which shows that we quite usually don't behave like theory predicts. Thaler's extensive research (the references are 30 pages long) gives The Winner's Curse a great academic foundation, but its maths that can be skipped and easy language makes the book acessible - and enjoyable - for every one that is just interested in Economics. To sum up, if you are studying or working with Economics, you should read this book. It will help you to be skeptical about the theory - just like every scientist should be. If you are reading it just by curiosity, it will enhance your skills when your are talking about the economy at a local pub. Actually, The Winner's Curse teaches you how to make money even in a pub. It worths the money. It's an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: A waste of good topics with bad writing/story telling skills
Review: I agree that the topics covered by the author are interesting, like the Winner's Curse which is the title of the book (that the successful bidder often loses in the end), and many other facts of life (why sports fans who wouldnt pay more than $200 for a Super Bowl ticket wouldnt sell one they own for less than $400)that cannot be explained satisfactorily by traditional economic theories built on the rationality of humans in their decision making process (Without prejudice, many economists call these anomalies and/or paradoxes instead of attempting to make their own theories work/look better). Though I did not expect the author to give me a practical solution or unique perspective to every single topic, I did expect him to give me an elaborated and organised analysis which enhances my critical thinking (or even earning power). However, only plain, boring and factual descriptions were given, a further aesthetic drawback to the already low utiltarian value of the book (I cant earn/save more nor become more knowledgeable after reading it). Perhaps I had been very wrong to compare it with the work of Paul Krugman. (After all, our economists suppose me to make a rational judgement of making the highest value of my money, dont they? p.s. Luckily most of the professors did not include this book in their MBA courses (I took it several years ago) as suggested by some reviewers here. They did put in something better, though I forget the titles of those books which did also cover paradoxes and anomalies.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic...Probably Ought to be Mandatory for MBAs
Review: I don't have an MBA, but if I did, I would want to learn the sorts of things set out in this book. Thaler writes well, covers really practical but also theoretically interesting stuff, and is just useful in the same sort of way Becker's stuff is. Learn why economics is not a science...but also why it is.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing for the academic mind
Review: Most anyone will find this discussion of Thaler's (and his colleagues) work enough to whet their appetite for more on the subject. It is only a matter of time before you will find yourself digging up the academic papers behind the discussions. My only complaint: the supporting books by Kahneman and Tversky are expensive!
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing for the academic mind
Review: Most anyone will find this discussion of Thaler's (and his colleagues) work enough to whet their appetite for more on the subject. It is only a matter of time before you will find yourself digging up the academic papers behind the discussions. My only complaint: the supporting books by Kahneman and Tversky are expensive!
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