Daniel Kahneman

Facts

Daniel Kahneman

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Daniel Kahneman
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2002

Born: 5 March 1934, Tel Aviv, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel)

Died: 27 March 2024

Affiliation at the time of the award: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

Prize motivation: “for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty”

Prize share: 1/2

Life

Daniel Kahneman was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, while his mother was visiting her extended family. The family’s regular domicile was in Paris, France. After his father’s death in 1944, he moved with his mother and sister to Palestine. He studied psychology at Hebrew University and the University of California, earning his Ph.D. in 1961. Kahneman has been married twice and has two children.

Work

Daniel Kahneman began his prize-awarded research in the late 1960s. In order to increase understanding of how people make economic decisions, he drew on cognitive psychology in relation to the mental process used in forming judgements and making choices. His research on decision-making under uncertainty resulted in the formulation of a new branch of economics, prospect theory.

To cite this section
MLA style: Daniel Kahneman – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Wed. 23 Oct 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2002/kahneman/facts/>

Back to top Back To Top Takes users back to the top of the page

Inside the mind of an economic sciences laureate

Perspectives on life

Why do we focus on negatives?

Ever wondered how Nobel Prize laureates think about the world? According to 2002 economic sciences laureate Daniel Kahneman, reacting to threats helped us to survive through our evolution history.

More videos on how to think like a laureate

Nobel Prizes and laureates

Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.

See them all presented here.
Illustration

Explore prizes and laureates

Look for popular awards and laureates in different fields, and discover the history of the Nobel Prize.