Open University module contributor wins Nobel Prize for Economics

Professor Richard Thaler, a contributor to the OU’s module ‘Doing economics: people, markets and policy’ (DD309), has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Professor Thaler is one of the founders of behavioural economics and he explains in his podcast how the Obama government chose to boost the American economy by giving people regular payments as opposed to an equivalent one-off sum which research shows people tend to save.

Author of the bestseller ‘Nudge’, Professor Thaler has persuaded governments and thousands if not millions of people around the world to be more cognisant of simple but powerful psychological factors that shape economic choices in everything from buying candy to investing in pensions.

When asked about the £840000 prize money, Professor Thaler joked that he would spend it as irrationally as possible.

Paul Anand, Professor of Economics

Photo credit: Image of Professor Richard Thaler by Chatham House on Flickr. Used here under Creative Commons licence (Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)).