The year 2002 is a symbol. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman (hereinafter referred to as Calleman) and economist Vernon L. Smith shared this year's Swedish Central Bank Award in memory of Af LeNobel in the field of economics. This is the first time that the award has been awarded to psychologists, and it is also the second time that it has been awarded to scholars who have not received serious economic training. (The last time was awarded to the mathematician Nash, watching the movie "Beautiful Mind") From the day of the award, behavioral science officially entered the public eye. Behaviorism and related psychological research, which has been satirized and ridiculed by economists for many years, combined with the content of economics, has been transformed into behavioral economics, and has gradually become one of the basic courses of doctoral programs in the best economics departments in the world (such as the economics department of Harvard University) (previously macro-microeconomics plus econometrics). Five years later, behavioral economics (including experimental economics with related methods) further developed into an important branch of economics, and its research results directly radiated to the functional research of various commercial branches such as finance, marketing and accounting.

Behavioral economics began to take decision-making examples that can be seen everywhere in people's lives as experimental content, directly challenging several key assumptions of traditional economics. After more than ten years of research and development, it has formed its own theory. Let's introduce the key theories and key figures one by one.

When it comes to behavioral economics, we can't help mentioning two people, one is Calleman mentioned above, and the other is his old countryman (both Jews) amos tversky. Calleman and Amos are old school friends (undergraduates of Hebrew University) and old comrades (it is said that they joined the IDF together and carried guns together). Both of them finally taught in the psychology department of Stanford University and became old colleagues.

Amos and Calleman have cooperated for decades and published many articles, including the one that won Calleman the prize (Econometrics 1979). But why didn't Amos win the prize? Amos didn't win the prize mainly because he died in 1996. Coase (Zhang Wuchang, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 19 1, died on September 2, 20 13, at the age of 102) finally won the prize at the age of 80 and left at the age of 84.

No.3 Taylor, richard thaler, was born in 1945. Look at these great behaviorists. The first person, Calleman, has won the prize and the second person, Amos, has passed away. Lao Rui, the third person, should also get an award.

Unlike Calleman and Amos, Taylor was a serious doctor of economics ('74 Rochester). But after graduation, he turned and dug the corner of traditional economics (mainly microeconomics). Macroeconomics has been excavated by Lucas and others in the sixties and seventies. After 30 years of unremitting efforts, I finally dug myself into a generation of masters: Taylor is considered to be the most important founder of behavioral finance.

Taylor is one of the supporters of the theory of endowment, and he has also made some small contributions to the theory of prospect, but these achievements are not enough to make him a third person. Taylor's contribution is that in the early 1980s, he established the mental account theory, which is comparable to the prospect theory (hereinafter referred to as mental account theory).

As the saying goes, everyone has an account in mind. Taylor said, otherwise, everyone has several accounts in mind. This is the core of mental account theory.