I’m enjoying reading Richard Thaler’s [amazon_link id=”B00SSKM714″ target=”_blank” ]Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics.[/amazon_link] At about the half way stage, there hasn’t been anything startlingly new in terms of the economic content, as the book is addressing general readers rather than economists who have already read widely on the subject. It is very well written and also interesting to hear from Thaler what it felt like to be one of the pioneers in this field.

[amazon_image id=”B00SSKM714″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics[/amazon_image]

There are also some very interesting new (to me) insights. For instance, I’d never really thought before about the importance of changes from the reference point in prospect theory. Thaler writes: “Kahneman and Tversky recognized that we had to change our focus from levels of wealth to changes in wealth. This may sound like a subtle tweak, but switching the focus to changes as opposed to levels is a radical move….. Changes are the way humans experience life.”

This is the consequence – obvious when you think about it – of the hedonic treadmill, of acclimatising to a situation. Over in the well-being literature, this is often taken as helping explain the Easterlin paradox, the implication being that “we”/policy should help push people off the hedonic treadmill above high-enough income levels, by demoting or even somehow halting growth. But it seems to me to imply the contrary, that it makes growth very important for well-being. Just as some of the empirical work indicates.

I’ll review the book when I’ve finished – which will be at the weekend as I need something smaller to pack in my bag for the train tomorrow.