This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta. Here on the show there's a fall tradition we love.

It has nothing to do with pumpkin spice or Halloween, although we love those too.

What I'm talking about is the annual announcement of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Sverius Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Richard H. Failer.

Richard Thaler has played an outsized role in shaping the field of behavioral economics.

He also happens to be a great conversationalist. So we thought we'd revisit our 2015 conversation with him.

It's still one of our favourites.

Richard Thaler's latest book is Misbehaving, The Story of Behavioral Economics.

I spoke to him before a live audience at NPR's Weekend in Washington, an event that brings together public radio supporters from across the country.

I want to start by asking Richard a room for a room for a living.

Your friend, his name is Daniel Coniman, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics some years ago.

World famous psychologist, brilliant author.

Richard was once asked to describe Richard Thaler to a journalist. Richard's dominant characteristic, the thing that makes him stand out, is that Richard is lazy.

Can you tell me Richard why Danny said that and also why he insists that this was a compliment?

Well, what's worse is Danny is my best friend and B. He said this was my best quality.

To this day Danny defends this and that he defends A and that it's true and B, that it's a compliment because he says that it means I'm only willing to work on things that are important.

The truth is I'm only willing to work on things that are fun and that's why I'm here today because I think we're going to fun.

I think that's exactly right. So I first started talking to Richard maybe about 10 years ago.

Let me just ask you to give us a very short introduction. What is behavioral economics and why has it made such a splash or why has it been so controversial over the last 15 or 20 years?

How is it different than garden variety economics?

You know, probably sometime in your distant past, all of you have had a class in economics and you know that standard economics assumes that people are highly rational creatures, capable of complex calculations, devoid of emotion, never having any self control problems and they're complete jerks.

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