The Economics Of Rationality

Author : Bill J Gerrard
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 206 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2006-04-10
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781134915286

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The Economics of Rationality by Bill J Gerrard Pdf

The concept of rationality is the heart of modern economics. Neo-classical theory seems unable to proceed without assuming a rational agent seeking to find the optimal means to a well defined end. Yet many find this uncritical treatment of rationality problematic. It takes little account of culture history or creativity and consequently many economists find this insistence on rationality of little use when trying to explain a wide range of economic phenomena. Increasingly these include a large number of game theorists and others involved in mainstream theory as well as those typically opposed to neo-classicism. The Economics of Rationality contains a number of critical perspectives on the treatment of rationality in economics.

Author : Maurice Godelier
Publisher : Verso Books
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2014-08-26
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781781680377

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Rationality and Irrationality in Economics by Maurice Godelier Pdf

This book is the result of a research project begun by the author in 1958 with the aim of answering two questions: First, what is the rationality of the economic systems that appear and disappear throughout history—in other words, what is their hidden logic and the underlying necessity for them to exist, or to have existed? Second, what are the conditions for a rational understanding of these systems—in other words, for a fully developed comparative economic science? The field of investigation opened up by these two questions is vast, touching on the foundations of social reality and on how to understand them. The author, being a Marxist, sought the answers, as he writes, ‘not in philosophy or by philosophical means, but in and through examining the knowledge accumulated by the sciences.’ The stages of his journey from philosophy to economics and then to anthropology are indicated by the divisions of his book. Godelier rejects, at the outset, any attempt to tackle the question of rationality or irrationality of economic science and of economic realities from the angle of an a priori idea, a speculative definition of what is rational. Such an approach can yield only, he feels, an ideological result. Rather, he treats the appearance and disappearance of social and economic systems in history as being governed by a necessity ‘wholly internal to the concrete structures of social life.

Author : Vernon L. Smith
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2007-11-05
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781139466462

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Rationality in Economics by Vernon L. Smith Pdf

The principal findings of experimental economics are that impersonal exchange in markets converges in repeated interaction to the equilibrium states implied by economic theory, under information conditions far weaker than specified in the theory. In personal, social, and economic exchange, as studied in two-person games, cooperation exceeds the prediction of traditional game theory. This book relates these two findings to field studies and applications and integrates them with the main themes of the Scottish Enlightenment and with the thoughts of F. A. Hayek: through emergent socio-economic institutions and cultural norms, people achieve ends that are unintended and poorly understood. In cultural changes, the role of constructivism, or reason, is to provide variation, and the role of ecological processes is to select the norms and institutions that serve the fitness needs of societies.

Author : Bill J Gerrard
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 174 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2006-04-10
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781134915293

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The Economics of Rationality by Bill J Gerrard Pdf

The concept of rationality is the heart of modern economics. Neo-classical theory seems unable to proceed without assuming a rational agent seeking to find the optimal means to a well defined end. Yet many find this uncritical treatment of rationality problematic. It takes little account of culture history or creativity and consequently many economists find this insistence on rationality of little use when trying to explain a wide range of economic phenomena. Increasingly these include a large number of game theorists and others involved in mainstream theory as well as those typically opposed to neo-classicism. The Economics of Rationality contains a number of critical perspectives on the treatment of rationality in economics.

Author : Richard B. McKenzie
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2009-10-21
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9783642015861

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Predictably Rational? by Richard B. McKenzie Pdf

Mainstream economists everywhere exhibit an "irrational passion for dispassionate rationality." Behavioral economists, and long-time critic of mainstream economics suggests that people in mainstrean economic models "can think like Albert Einstein, store as much memory as IBM’s Big Blue, and exercise the will power of Mahatma Gandhi," suggesting that such a view of real world modern homo sapiens is simply wrongheaded. Indeed, Thaler and other behavioral economists and psychology have documented a variety of ways in which real-world people fall far short of mainstream economists' idealized economic actor, perfectly rational homo economicus. Behavioral economist Daniel Ariely has concluded that real-world people not only exhibit an array of decision-making frailties and biases, they are "predictably irrational," a position now shared by so many behavioral economists, psychologists, sociologists, and evolutionary biologists that a defense of the core rationality premise of modedrn economics is demanded.

Author : Michel Zouboulakis
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2014-01-21
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781317817499

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The Varieties of Economic Rationality by Michel Zouboulakis Pdf

The concept of economic rationality is important for the historical evolution of Economics as a scientific discipline. The common idea about this concept -even between economists- is that it has a unique meaning which is universally accepted. This new volume argues that "economic rationality" is not not a universal concept with one single meaning, and that it in fact has different, if not conflicting, interpretations in the evolution of discourse on economics. In order to achieve this, the book traces the historical evolution of the concept of economic rationality from Adam Smith to the present, taking in thinkers from Mill to Friedman, and encompassing approaches from neoclassical to behavioural economics. The book charts this history in order to reveal important instances of conceptual transformation of the meaning of economic rationality. In doing so, it presents a uniquely detailed study of the historical change of the many faces of the homo oeconomicus .

Author : Shaun Hargreaves Heap
Publisher : Wiley-Blackwell
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1989-01-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0631156666

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Rationality in Economics by Shaun Hargreaves Heap Pdf

Author : Richard H. Thaler
Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
Page : 396 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 1994-01-04
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 087154847X

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Quasi Rational Economics by Richard H. Thaler Pdf

Standard economics theory is built on the assumption that human beings act rationally in their own self interest. But if rationality is such a reliable factor, why do economic models so often fail to predict market behavior accurately? According to Richard Thaler, the shortcomings of the standard approach arise from its failure to take into account systematic mental biases that color all human judgments and decisions.

Author : Maurice Lagueux
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 630 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2010-02-28
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781135150334

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Rationality and Explanation in Economics by Maurice Lagueux Pdf

Economical questions indisputably occupy a central place in everyday life. In order to clarify these questions, people generally turn to those who are familiar with economics. In answering such legitimate questions, economists propose explanations which rest on a few principles among which the rationality principle is by far the most fundamental. This principle assumes that people are rational, but what is meant by this has to be specified. Rationality and Explanation in Economics claims that only a minimal kind of rationality is required to ‘animate’ economic explanations. However, such a conception of rationality faces serious objections: it is closely associated with harshly criticised methodological individualism and it is not easily disentangled from sheer irrationality. The book answers these objections and shows that the economists’ way of mobilising the concepts of maximization or of consistency for defining rationality raises more serious problems. Since the latter have encouraged various attempts to downgrade or even to dispense with the very notion of rationality, the book is largely devoted to countering arguments associated with these attempts and to show why postulating that agents are rational is still the only efficient way to explain economic phenomena as such. The author also proposes original views about the role of rationality, the meaning of methodological individualism, the relevance of the selection argument and the relation between ‘rational’ explanations of economics and explanations in natural sciences.

Author : Karen Schweers Cook,Margaret Levi
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2008-10-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780226742410

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The Limits of Rationality by Karen Schweers Cook,Margaret Levi Pdf

Prevailing economic theory presumes that agents act rationally when they make decisions, striving to maximize the efficient use of their resources. Psychology has repeatedly challenged the rational choice paradigm with persuasive evidence that people do not always make the optimal choice. Yet the paradigm has proven so successful a predictor that its use continues to flourish, fueled by debate across the social sciences over why it works so well. Intended to introduce novices to rational choice theory, this accessible, interdisciplinary book collects writings by leading researchers. The Limits of Rationality illuminates the rational choice paradigm of social and political behavior itself, identifies its limitations, clarifies the nature of current controversies, and offers suggestions for improving current models. In the first section of the book, contributors consider the theoretical foundations of rational choice. Models of rational choice play an important role in providing a standard of human action and the bases for constitutional design, but do they also succeed as explanatory models of behavior? Do empirical failures of these explanatory models constitute a telling condemnation of rational choice theory or do they open new avenues of investigation and theorizing? Emphasizing analyses of norms and institutions, the second and third sections of the book investigate areas in which rational choice theory might be extended in order to provide better models. The contributors evaluate the adequacy of analyses based on neoclassical economics, the potential contributions of game theory and cognitive science, and the consequences for the basic framework when unequal bargaining power and hierarchy are introduced.

Author : Alan Kirman
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2010-09-13
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781136941672

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Complex Economics by Alan Kirman Pdf

The economic crisis is also a crisis for economic theory. Most analyses of the evolution of the crisis invoke three themes, contagion, networks and trust, yet none of these play a major role in standard macroeconomic models. What is needed is a theory in which these aspects are central. The direct interaction between individuals, firms and banks does not simply produce imperfections in the functioning of the economy but is the very basis of the functioning of a modern economy. This book suggests a way of analysing the economy which takes this point of view. The economy should be considered as a complex adaptive system in which the agents constantly react to, influence and are influenced by, the other individuals in the economy. In such systems which are familiar from statistical physics and biology for example, the behaviour of the aggregate cannot be deduced from the behaviour of the average, or "representative" individual. Just as the organised activity of an ants’ nest cannot be understood from the behaviour of a "representative ant" so macroeconomic phenomena should not be assimilated to those associated with the "representative agent". This book provides examples where this can clearly be seen. The examples range from Schelling’s model of segregation, to contributions to public goods, the evolution of buyer seller relations in fish markets, to financial models based on the foraging behaviour of ants. The message of the book is that coordination rather than efficiency is the central problem in economics. How do the myriads of individual choices and decisions come to be coordinated? How does the economy or a market, "self organise" and how does this sometimes result in major upheavals, or to use the phrase from physics, "phase transitions"? The sort of system described in this book is not in equilibrium in the standard sense, it is constantly changing and moving from state to state and its very structure is always being modified. The economy is not a ship sailing on a well-defined trajectory which occasionally gets knocked off course. It is more like the slime described in the book "emergence", constantly reorganising itself so as to slide collectively in directions which are neither understood nor necessarily desired by its components.

Author : Bo Gustafsson,Christian Knudsen,Uskali M
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 1993-06-17
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781134873289

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Rationality, Institutions and Economic Methodology by Bo Gustafsson,Christian Knudsen,Uskali M Pdf

Looks at ways to increase the scope and power of institutional economics. Different approaches to economic methodology are considered and the broader notions of rationality offered by institutional economics are discussed.

Author : L. D. Keita
Publisher : University of Delaware Press
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0874134102

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Science, Rationality, and Neoclassical Economics by L. D. Keita Pdf

This work examines the claim to scienific status made by supporters and practitioners of neoclassical economics. The approach taken is that of the history and philosophy of science. Analysis points to the conclusion that theories of economic choice are necessarily normative, essentially because of the nature of human behavior.

Author : Julian Nida-Rümelin
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 183 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2013-06-29
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9789401588140

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Economic Rationality and Practical Reason by Julian Nida-Rümelin Pdf

The theory of practical rationality does not belong to one academic discipline alone. There are quite divergent philosophical, economical, sociological, psychological and politological contributions. Sometimes the disciplinary boundaries impede theoretical progress. On the other hand it is an indication for the high complexity of the subject that so many divergent paradigms compete with one another, or - what is worse - live separately in a kind of splendid isolation. Decision theory in the broader sense, embracing the theory of games and collective choice theory, can help to understand practical reason in philosophical analysis. But there are interesting aspects which cannot be dealt with adequately within a decision-theoretic conceptual framework. To have both of these convictions justifies to neglect dis ciplinary boundaries and poses a problem for the orthodoxies of either sides. All the essays of this volume focus on the relation between economic rationality and practical reason and discuss different aspects of the same problem, i. e. a basic deficiency in the standard economic theory of practical rationality. But philosophical analysis would not be of much help if it just rejected the economic paradigm. It must rather help to integrate economic aspects into a broader view on practical reason.

Author : Uskali Mäki,Bo Gustafsson,Christian Knudsen
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0415092086

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Rationality, Institutions, and Economic Methodology by Uskali Mäki,Bo Gustafsson,Christian Knudsen Pdf

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.