Behavioral Economics For Dummies (2024)

اقتصاد رفتاری شاخه ای از علم اقتصاد است که به نقش رفتارها و تصمیم های اقتصادی افراد پرداخته و می کوشد به کمک تحلیل این رفتارها شناخت بهتری از پیچیدگی انسان در تصمیم گیری بدست آورد . در حقیقت اقتصاد کلاسیک انسان را مانند یک موجود مکانیکی در نظر گرفته وانسان را فاقد عواطف و هیجان می داند اما اقتصاد رفتاری بر این باور است که تصمیم های اقتصادی انسان پیچیده تر از آن هست که با فرمول و نمودار بیان شود .
کتاب توضیح می دهد که چگونه عوامل روان شناختی و چهارچوب های ذهنی و فشار جامعه می تواند بر قدرت تصمیم گیری افراد اثر بگذارد و سپس با آوردن مثال سعی می کند که دلایل توضیح داده شده را برای خواننده ملموس تر کند .
شاید جالب ترین فصل کتاب هنر و دانش شاد بودن باشد، در این فصل آقای آلتمن به تعریف شادی و رابطه آن با اقتصاد متعارف می پردازد و این تئوری را که پول باعث شادی می شود را با دیده شک و تردید می نگرد و در پایان این فصل نقش دولت در افزایش شادمانی یا کاهش آن را برسی می کند .
اما پرفسور آلتمن هنگام نگارش کتاب به یاد مخاطب از کشورهای کمتر توسعه یافته یا کاملا توسعه نیافته نبوده ، در حقیقت برخی از موضوعات مطرح شده در کتاب برای این گونه مخاطبین که زندگی و کار برای آنان به مانند جنگ بوده ،ممکن است بسیار شعاری و فاقد هرگونه نکته کاربردی به نظر برسد .

This was a good background book on the differences between conventional economic theories and behavioral economic theories. I agree with other reviewers that there is a lot of repetition. Readers should appreciate, however, that 'for dummies' books are formatted so you can just focus on chapters of interest and skip around, which means that the foundational concepts get covered multiple times in the book.

The most instructive and thought-provoking thing for me in the book was the very early realization that many people who are formally educated in finance and economics tend to behave the worst (the most self-serving, in line with the assumed actor characteristics in conventional economic theory) compared to people like myself who pursue other courses e.g. liberal arts. To me, the assumed character traits are sociopathic and wholly unsupportive of family, community, or broader organized groups/identities.

One point I disagree strongly on (and didn't like the oversimplification for dummies) was the author’s statement in Chapter 15 that an investor cannot beat the market. That is not accurate; one need only look at Benjamin Graham’s disciples (the value investors) like Warren Buffett and a his value investor 'cigar stubs' peers. It is possible… or at least, was for their generation, it’s just very difficult to do and requires expertise and obsession about digging into the fundamentals of specific companies. Great resources for the counter argument: Howard Marks, The Most Important Thing… and Snowball, the biography on Warren Buffett.

This book is good for everyone who is interested in what behavioral economics and economics research is about, in general. It's a good overview, as Morris briefly discusses almost every BE topic I can think of. I think this is a good guide to base a BE university-course on. But I didn't find any references, which was a bit disappointing, and Morris repeats himself about 10 times for each thing he discusses in the book. Whether that is intentional or not (could not be, since I also found many typos and other mistakes suggesting some sloppiness), it was annoying for me. The book's structure could also have been a bit better, especially with some chapters rearranged.

This book didn't teach me much about BE that I didn't already know. This could be that I wasn't the target audience - it is 'for dummies' after all, so it might be aimed at people who know less. I would still have expected to learn more though, given that my knowledge of BE has been gained in a fairly piecemeal way.

Another reason, though, is undoubtedly that the book is incredibly repetitive and simplistic. It repeats the same points multiple times, and takes an entire chapter to make a point that could be made in 1-2 pages. Duplication between chapters is perhaps forgivable - it is supposed to be a book that you can dip in and out of, which does require the most important points to be made in each chapter. But the repetition within chapters, and the amount of text required to make a simple point, is not excusable. To me it feels as if the author was commissioned to write a book of a certain length, and did whatever he could to pad out simple points to hit the target no. of pages.

Another big bugbear is that lots of the graphs, and descriptions of graphs, were inaccurate, which I think is appalling. There were several instances where the labels in the graph were inconsistent with the text description of the graph. And there was at least one instance of the text actually describing the wrong graph/the graph being at the wrong point in the book! (16.2 and 16.4 being mixed up) It doesn't feel like much proof reading was done....

Overall the book was interesting, but in my view this is more because the subject matter is interesting than because the author did a good job. I would recommend anyone interested in BE to read other books instead if they want to learn more - for example, Dan Ariely's books are very well written and accessible, and contain a lot more content despite being shorter.

اگر به موضوع اقتصاد و به شکل خاص شاخه اقتصاد رفتاری علاقه داشته باشید کتاب مناسبی برای شما خواهد بود.
پروفسور آلتمن در این کتاب توضیح میده که فرضیات اساسی اقتصاد متعارف در عمل و در زندگی واقعی افراد با انحرافاتی اجرا میشه که دیگه اقتصاد متعارف قادر به توجیهش نیست. در همه فصول شما مقایسه بین فرضیات اقتصاد متعارف و رفتاری ، نقاط ضعف و قوت هر کدوم و مثالهای ساده درباره این دو مقوله هستید ، هر چند میشه گفت تمایل نویسنده بیشتر به سمت تئوریهای رفتاری‌بوده.
در کل به نظرم کتاب مفید و کاملی بود و میتونه بعنوان دریچه ورود به اقتصاد رفتاری مطالعه بشه.

کیفیت چاپ، گرافیک کتاب و کیفیت ترجمه (نشر آوند با ترجمه گروهی از دانشجویان اقتصاد به سرپرستی دکتر رنانی عزیز) هم بسیار مناسبه

This is a good primer for those becoming interested in the subject of behavioral economics, it is well laid out and give a high level approach to the subject. Studies and leading proponents are mentioned so the reader has a foundation for further study. I do not believe any book should be labeled "for Dummies", but this is the second one I've read and enjoyed. Not for the knowledgeable business minded person, but a good read.

A decent overview of behavioural economics concepts. I would've given this 4 stars if it weren't for all the needless repetition and typos.

Definitely not for Dummies...The idea makes sense, but I don't like the flow of the idea.

Good guide