Kahneman, Daniel (1934- )

Israeli-born US psychologist who was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences (with Vernon L Smith) for introducing psychological methods into economic research.

Kahneman, working with US psychologist Amos Tversky, made a series of studies that showed that individual financial decisions often do not make economic sense because decision makers are unable to work out future possibilities according to the theory of probability. Kahneman and Tversky developed an alternative, prospect theory, which can be used to explain patterns of behaviour that differ from the expected.

Kahneman was born in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. In 1993 he became the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, New Jersey; his many publications include Attention and Effort (1973) and Judgment under Uncertainty (1982).