About this item
Blending humor and behavioral economics, the New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational delves into the truly illogical world of personal finance to help people better understand why they make bad financial decisions, and gives them the knowledge they need to make better ones.Why does paying for things often feel like it causes physical pain?Why does it cost you money to act as your own real estate agent?Why are we comfortable overpaying for something now just because we've overpaid for it before? In Dollars and Sense, world renowned economist Dan Ariely answers these intriguing questions and many more as he explains how our irrational behavior often interferes with our best intentions when it comes to managing our finances. Partnering with financial comedian and writer Jeff Kreisler, Ariely takes us deep inside our minds to expose the hidden motivations that are secretly driving our choices about money. Exploring a wide range of everyday topics - from credit card debt and household budgeting to holiday sales - Ariely and Kreisler demonstrate how our ideas about dollars and cents are often wrong and cost us more than we know. Mixing case studies and anecdotes with tangible advice and lessons, they cut through the unconscious fears and desires driving our worst financial instincts and teach us how to improve our money habits. Fascinating, engaging, funny, and essential, Dollars and Sense is a sound investment, providing us with the practical tools we need to understand and improve our financial choices, save and spend smarter, and ultimately live better.
About the Author
Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University. He also holds an appointment at the MIT Media Lab where he is the head of the eRationality research group. He was formerly the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at MIT Sloan School of Management. Dan Ariely grew up in Israel after birth in New York. He served in the Israeli army and when 18 suffered third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body from an accidental magnesium flare explosion during training. Ariely recovered and went on to graduate from Tel Aviv University and received a Ph. D. and M.A. in cognitive psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Ph. D. in business from Duke University. His research focuses on discovering and measuring how people make decisions. He models the human decision making process and in particular the irrational decisions that we all make every day. Ariely is the author of the book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, which was published on February 19, 2008 by HarperCollins. When asked whether reading Predictably Irrational and understanding one's irrational behaviors could make a person's life worse (such as by defeating the benefits of a placebo) , Ariely responded that there could be a short term cost, but that there would also likely be longterm benefits, and that reading his book would not make a person worse off.
