Richard Thaler Depressed After No Longer Being the Center of Attention

By JJ Zheng

Oct. 8, 2018

Credit: Getty Images

Dr. Richard Thaler, recipient of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics, is reportedly feeling depressed after news of the 2018 recipients broke this morning.

The Royal Swedish Academy Of Sciences announced earlier today that NYU Professor Paul Romer and Yale Professor William Nordhaus would each receive this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics.

Shortly after the winners were revealed, Thaler was seen mopishly walking towards Booth’s Harper Center to teach his morning class section. “I’ve never seen anyone sadder come into this building,” David Nahas, the on-duty receptionist at the time, remarked. “I was very concerned the bottom of his briefcase and his leather shoes were going to get scraped as he dragged them across the floor.”

Thaler, who won his prize for achievement in behavioral economics, enjoyed living the past year in the limelight. “I know that you can’t really get the Nobel Prize two years in a row, but I was secretly hoping they wouldn’t find anyone to give it to this year. I really just wanted to be top dog again,” Thaler explained at the beginning of his lecture as he watched half the class leave the room and drop the class, disinterested with studying under another no-name professor.

Marc Zabrowski, a recent admit to Booth’s full-time MBA Program, was one of many leaving Professor Thaler’s classroom mid-lecture. “Does anyone know if my tuition is refundable? The only reason I choose Booth was to study under a famous professor, but no one really talks about him anymore. I still don’t know how to pronounce his name–is it ‘Thayler’, or ‘Thaoler’? I guess we’ll never know.”

At press time, Thaler was reportedly seen sobbing in the corner of the Rothman Winter Garden as maintenance crews removed the informational exhibit on him and his Nobel Prize.