Did you ever have a book on your shelf that's been there for years, and you keep telling yourself "I'll get to it one day?" Predictably Irrational is one such book for me, and after looking at it gather dust for a few years, I decided to finally see what it was all about.
Predictably Irrational discusses the results of a series of studies carried out by a behavioral economist. The basic premise is that standard economic models- to include supply/demand, market forces, etc- would work as expected if people are rational. The problem is, we're not, and we do irrational things, and make irrational choices, every day. This work investigates some of those, and makes some recommendations about how we can realize what's going on, and work to stop irrational decisions from leading us down undesired paths.
Overall, it was pretty good. My main fault with this was due to my own misperception on the book's approach- I thought it would be an in-depth treatment of the human nature, not a series of studies on economics. I can't fault the author for that, of course. The other issue I had was due to the nature of some of the studies- as a 'soft science,' it's hard to always draw definitive results from studies. I didn't feel as though any studies were outright shams, but I felt that, at times, the author's conclusions were a stretch. Still, the book provided food for thought, which was the primary intent.
Rating: B-
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