Reviews for Adam Smith and the philosophy of law and economics

The average rating for Adam Smith and the philosophy of law and economics based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-08-09 00:00:00 Eric Campbell Read my full notes from the book at Now, on to the review: "Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them" is one of the best finance books I've read so far (it's more finance and economics). It's a very nice blend of finance and psychology -- the field formally known as behavioral finance. Since the first edition of the book was published in 1999, I was concerned that the content might be dated. What I forgot was that the way humans think and behave doesn't change in a few decades. As such, most of the cited research and learnings still hold true. Which bring me to the best thing I liked about this book -- the authors pull in and quote a TON of research. This whole book could be described as an aggregation of behavioral finance research done by a few authors. Each of the eight chapters covers something unique and the book itself doesn't feel fluffed. Each chapter has a very readable, skimmable and consistent format. I do recommend reading page to page and not skimming if you're interested in the subject matter. Speaking of the format, each chapter starts with a thought-provoking story or situation, explains what the actions and influences are, and ends with warning signs and ways to improve. What I didn't like about the research is lack of diversity in quoted material. Most of the cited research is by Tversky and Kahneman. Now that could very well be because those two did the most work in this field (did they? I don't know), but I'd still like to see a diverse collection of research. Finally, I would recommend this book to anyone who's new to behavioral finance. It will give you a good base understanding of how human mind operates when it comes to money, what our biases our and how to check (and fix them). I certainly will be applying some of the knowledge I gained!

Review # 2 was written on 2014-08-05 00:00:00 Marvin Goldsby A great supplement to Thinking, Fast and Slow and Freakonomics. There is only so much behavioral economics research out there, so overlap with prominent books is unavoidable. Re-reading huge swaths of material cheapens the experience and you must carefully plan any behavioral economics kick. I've spaced the books over several years and I've found that the studies cited have clung to my brain like cicada--I remembered nearly everything. Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them can be classified as (mainly) Kahneman and Tversky's research applied to personal finance. Ironically, this is what many people picked up Thinking, Fast and Slow hoping it would be. Way more approachable with sharp writing, this is a great book. However, the book did next to nothing for me as I'd previously read almost every study that was recounted in the book and read several personal finance blogs regularly. While I made it through the whole thing, I grew tired of it by chapter six. If you only read one book on behavioral economics, this should be it. If you plan to read several, you need to start with Thinking, Fast and Slow or it will be valueless after seeing the concepts applied here. See this review and others on my blog