The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos How to Spend Your Time and Money Better (with Nobel Prize Winner Richard Thaler)
290 snips
Sep 22, 2025 
Join Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist Richard Thaler and fellow economist Alex Imas as they explore the quirks of human decision-making around money and time. They discuss the phenomenon of the endowment effect and why we cling to our possessions. Discover why people often procrastinate important tasks and how mental accounting influences our spending habits. Thaler shares practical strategies like the Save More Tomorrow program to improve financial decisions, while shedding light on our irrational tendencies in everyday life.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Boost Cooperation With Communication And Norms
- Increase cooperation by enabling interpersonal communication before decisions are made.
- Introduce norms and low-cost punishment opportunities to sustain cooperative behavior.
Endowment Effect Drives Status Quo Inertia
- People overvalue what they own and resist exchanging it, even minutes after receiving it.
- Status quo bias and loss aversion create predictable inertia that firms exploit with defaults.
Use Defaults To Harness Inertia
- Use defaults to increase beneficial behaviors like retirement saving by enrolling people automatically.
- Change defaults deliberately to harness inertia for good.
