Irrational Humans: How Our Behaviour Shapes the Economy (Professor Richard Thaler)
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 6 November 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do human choices, biases, and behaviours shape our economy? This week Amol speaks to Nobel Prize winning behavioural economist Professor Richard Thaler about his theories that dive into the patterns behind our decision-making and reveal why humans aren’t always as rational as we like to think.
From overconfidence and the lure of winning at any cost, to the hidden costs of risk-taking and the psychology of incentives, his research shows why individuals and markets sometimes make surprising — or even seemingly irrational — choices.
By unpacking the experiments described in his book The Winner’s Curse we get an insight into his work and he applies these behavioural insights to the issues facing the UK today. They discuss how to get young people off welfare and into work, government debt and why Richard believes the winter fuel allowance needs a rethink.
(00:04:10) Why he thinks traditional economic theory is flawed
(00:07:44) The pros and cons of behavioural economics
(00:17:40) The story behind The Winner’s Curse
(00:19:00) The Endowment Effect
(00:21:16) The Ultimatum Game
(00:23:28) Confirmation Bias and Overconfidence
(00:25:54) Mental Accounting
(00:29:42) Young people, welfare and work
(00:33:35) Tackling government debt
(00:38:32) The housing crisis
(00:40:06) The rise of AI and dangers of social media
(00:43:00) How he found out that he’d won the Nobel Prize for Economics
(00:45:26) Richard Thaler’s legacy
(00:47:43) Amol’s reflections
(00:51:20) Listener Messages
GET IN TOUCH * WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are released every Thursday and you can also watch them on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002f1d0/radical-with-amol-rajan Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. He is also the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and editor at The Independent.
Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast. It was made by Lewis Vickers with Anna Budd. Digital production was by Gabriel Purcell-Davis. Technical production was by Dave O’Neill. The editor is Sam Bonham. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.8 | Right then, before we get started this week, let me just tell you about a very exciting |
| 0:11.9 | new way for you to get very involved with this podcast. |
| 0:16.3 | I always said right at the beginning, as we started and we launched Radical, that I really, |
| 0:20.5 | really wanted to build a community where we launched Radical, that I really, really wanted |
| 0:21.1 | to build a community where we all exchange ideas, we interrogate ideas, including dangerous |
| 0:26.9 | ideas, including bad ideas in a safe space, which is why I love hearing your very thoughtful |
| 0:32.2 | reflections on the conversations that we have here on Radical. But we want to go further, |
| 0:36.3 | and we believe in experimenting, and we believe in experimenting and we |
| 0:38.6 | believe in experimenting with you, our lovely community of listeners and viewers. So in the next few |
| 0:44.3 | weeks, we are going to be experimenting with an extra question and answer episode where our guests, |
| 0:50.5 | our brilliant guests, are going to be answering your brilliant questions. |
| 0:55.0 | And the first person that we've got on this extra Q&A episode, he'll be on the main episode, the main podcast as well. |
| 1:00.3 | Of course, is someone that many of you have asked us to invite on. |
| 1:04.1 | He is the farmer and author James Rebanks. |
| 1:07.6 | His latest book is called The Place of Tides. |
| 1:09.3 | He also wrote The Shepherd's Life and English Pastoral and Inheritance. He's a is called The Place of Tides. He also wrote The Shepherds Life and |
| 1:11.4 | English Pastoral and Inheritance. He's a former guest editor of the today program, a very, very interesting man. And if you've got a burning question for him about, I don't know, farming in the UK, which he knows a lot about, food security, which he knows a lot about, rural life, which he knows a lot about, |
| 1:27.1 | please do get in touch |
| 1:28.1 | with your questions. |
| 1:28.8 | WhatsApp us on 0-330-123. security, which he knows a lot about, rural life, which he knows a lot about. Please do get in touch |
| 1:28.0 | your questions. WhatsApp us on 0-330-123-94480 or email Radical at BBC.com.com. And be part of the |
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