A Nobel 'nudge'

Mr Thaler made human behaviour central to economic theory

Richard H Thaler, who is credited with having developed the field of behavioural economics, has been awarded the 2017 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, more popularly known as the Nobel Prize in Economics. It may be par for the course today to say that all economics is behavioural but it was nowhere near the dominant paradigm when Mr Thaler, a 72-year-old professor of behavioural sciences and economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, started work almost four decades ago. In essence, Mr Thaler’s contribution goes to the very heart of economic modelling and has had a