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Behavioral economics research and the foundations of economics
Five propositions on which economists and psychologists including behavioral economists are in agreement are presented, leading to a discussion about two kinds of rationality. After some comments on methodology and on concepts of fairness, I will discuss the question of wealth maximization versus the economics of survival, and their different implications for behavior.
2008
Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution, S. Bowles. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford (2004). 608 pp., Price: US$ 75, ISBN: 978-0-691-09163-1 http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7610.html
The Unfolding Landscape of Behavioral Economics: from the past to the future
2019
Consolidated by the award of the 2017 Economics Nobel Prize to behavioral economist Richard Thaler, behavioral economics is enjoying a golden age. It combines a diverse range of insights from across the social sciences – including economists’ powerful analytical tools, alongside rich evidence about real human behavior from other social sciences – especially psychology and sociology. This article explores the evolution of behavioral economics and some key behavioral insights about incentives and motivations; social influences and social learning, peer pressure, and group-think; heuristics and biases; decision-making under risk and uncertainty; present bias and procrastination; and nudging policy tools. These all illustrate how behavioral economics provides businesses and policy makers with a rich understanding of how real people think, choose, and decide.
Behavioral economics: Past, present, future
2004
Behavioral economics increases the explanatory power of economics by providing it with more realistic psychological foundations. This book consists of representative recent articles in behavioral economics. 1 Chapter 1 is intended to provide an introduction to the approach and methods of behavioral economics, and to some of its major findings, applications, and promising new directions. It also seeks to fill some unavoidable gaps in the chapters' coverage of topics.
Toward a More Complete Science of Human Behavior: Behaviorology Plus Institutional Economics
Behavior and Social Issues, 1998
In this essay, I explore what economic science in partnership with behaviorological science might offer in constructing a more complete science of human behavior. My focus is on institutional economists, a community of heterodox economists who have an evolutionary understanding of culture and thus a close affinity to the behaviorological view of culture. I contrast mainstream (neoclassical) economics with institutional economics, provide an overview of the latter, and suggest some topics of mutual interest: namely, the instrumental-ceremonial dichotomy, the analysis of power relations, methodological individualism, and the definition of institution augmented with the concept of macrocontingency. I conclude with a caH for the crossdisciplinary colJaboration of institutional economists, cultural materialists, critical Marxists, radical behaviorists, and other evolutionary/materialistic behavioral scientists.
To be published in the Journal of Evolutionary Economics
2008
Several leading mainstream economists including Gary Becker have treated habit as serially correlated behaviour resulting from deliberate choices. This approach puts choice before habit but involves assumptions of extensive memory and decision-making capacity. By contrast, earlier authors such as William James, John Dewey and Thorstein Veblen saw deliberation and choice as a contingent outcome of habits, where the latter are defined in terms of acquired dispositions rather than overt behaviour. The approach of this second group is more consistent with an evolutionary perspective and the limited computational capacities of the human brain. In some way or another, it is widely accepted that habits affect our choices, and past choices affect habits. 1 Beyond this consensus, however, there is dispute whether habit or choice are ultimately in the driving seat. For most economists, decision and choice have been uppermost and habit has followed in its wake. After all, economics since Lionel Robbins (1932) has been dubbed "the science of choice".