Daniel Kahneman, born in 1934, is an Israeli-American psychologist and currently teaches at Princeton University. Even though Kahneman is a psychologist and he’s never attended an economic course, in 2002 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences jointly with Vernon Smith. He was granted this prize for his work on integrating phycology into economic science, especially regarding decision making under uncertainty and his collaboration in the development of behavioural economics.
Kahneman along with his close associate, Amos Tversky, who was mentioned at the Nobel award, demonstrated that people are unable to fully analyse complex situations which consequences are uncertain and so breaking with the rational agent assumption derived from neoclassic economics. They uncovered this issue and developed what is known as the prospect theory in their “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk”, 1979. It’s important to mention Maurice Allais who served as inspiration for Kahneman´s work.