WHERE ARE THE MOTIVES - A PROBLEM WITH EVIDENCE IN THE WORK OF THALER,RICHARD

Richard Thaler has made a number of claims about the peculiar motives people have for their economic behaviour. This paper is sympathetic to Thaler's project, but argues that there is a problem with the evidenc e he uses to support his claims. The problem is that Thaler's main cla ims problem with the evidence he uses to support his claims. The probl em is that Thaler's main claims are about the motivation for economic action, but his main evidence is not about motivation but about behavi our. In failing to provide evidence about motives, Thaler's claims are vulnerable. To illustrate this problem the paper focuses on an exampl e of the apparently anomalous behaviour of wine owners which Thaler us es. Employing some evidence about the motivations of wine owners, the paper challenges Thaler's claims that the behaviour of wine owners is explained by the 'endowment effect' and 'loss aversion.'