HYDE PARK — University of Chicago Professor Richard Thaler won the Nobel Prize in economics on Monday.
Thaler is the 90th scholar at the university to win a $1.1 million Nobel Prize and the 29th to win the prize in economics.
Thaler was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in behavioral economics and challenging the assumption that people make economic decisions for rational reasons.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which issues the prize, praised Thaler’s work to bring into economic thinking people’s self-control, concepts of fairness and mental accounting.
Thaler is considered one of the fathers of behavioral economics and is best known for his simple scenarios that show how people often contradict how economists think they will act.
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In one example, Thaler’s work has shown how people don’t treat all dollars the same, but will often put money into “mental accounts” for things like food, travel or housing and treat a dollar differently based on how it affects that mental fund.
“Money in one mental account is not a perfect substitute for money in another account,” Thaler wrote in a 1999 paper.
He has been on the university’s faculty since 1995.
