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The Winner's Curse
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  • Published: 13 October 2026
  • ISBN: 9780141997711
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $28.99

The Winner's Curse

Behavioral Economics Anomalies Then and Now

Formats & editions
Paperback
13 Oct 2026
Hardback
10 Feb 2026
EBook
21 Oct 2025
Audiobook
21 Oct 2025
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Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler and rising star economist Alex Imas explore behavioral economics in this fully updated edition of the seminal work The Winner’s Curse

Why do people cooperate with one another when they have no (selfish) motivation to do so? Why do we hold onto possessions of little value? And why is the winner of an auction so often disappointed?

In the original 1992 version of The Winner’s Curse, Richard Thaler introduced readers to behavioral economics, challenging the notion of traditional economics that people are selfish, rational optimizers and behave accordingly every time. Three decades later, Thaler has teamed up with economist Alex Imas to provide fresh insights in this fully updated edition. They revisit Thaler's original columns on economic anomalies, some written with collaborators like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, and explore how these anomalies hold up today.

Many anomalies remain, whether in households saving for retirement (or not), professional golfers putting for millions of dollars, or shoppers at large retail chains. In this era of meme stocks and Dogecoin, it is hard to defend the view that financial markets are highly efficient. The good news, however, is that they have gotten funnier.

With both readability and rigor, The Winner’s Curse is approachable for anyone with even a cursory understanding of economics, without oversimplifying so that experts cannot read it without cringing. In the final chapter, the authors reflect on the field’s progress and future. Thaler and Imas offer an updated classic even more relevant today to understand the true nature of decision-making in the current economy.
  • Published: 13 October 2026
  • ISBN: 9780141997711
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $28.99
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About the authors

Richard H. Thaler

Richard H. Thaler is Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioural Science and Economics, and Director of the Centre for Decision Research, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. He is also research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
RH.

Alex O. Imas

Alex O. Imas is Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago School’s Booth School of Business. He is the recipient of the 2023 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Review of Financial Studies Rising Scholar Award, the New Investigator Award from the Behavioral Science and Policy Association, the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award from the Society of Judgment and Decision Making, the Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Behavioral Economics at Carnegie Mellon University.
AO.

Praise for The Winner's Curse

It’s fun and nerdy in the best way, and I have no hesitation at recommending it

Tim Harford, Financial Times Best Books of 2025

Thaler and Imas gleefully trash numerous central dogmas of modern-day economics and instead foreground how knee-jerk intuitions, fuzzy rules of thumb, and social pressure rule human decision-making. It’s a sophisticated discussion, complete with a few equations, but lay readers will enjoy the lucid prose and down-home conclusions. The result is an enlightening analysis of economic choice as a stubbornly flawed and human endeavor

Publisher's Weekly

part of the canon of behavioral economics

Greg Rosalsky, Planet Money, NPR

contains a wealth of empirical evidence to describe how people deviate from the ideal theory presented in a narrative that is easily accessible to non-economists

Matthew Lucky, Promarket

Shines a light on our cognitive biases ... and applies it to something that impacts all of our lives - markets, businesses, the way we conduct our own households

Nick Kokonas, co-author of "Life, On the Line"

Revisits decades of behavioral insights that changed how we think about choice, cooperation and human nature itself

Guy Kawasaki, Remarkable People

This is everywhere now. It's in the meme stocks, the retail traders, sports betting, online casinos

Alice Fulwood, Economist