I started as a market researcher 25 years ago; I have worked in 30 countries; I can testify that global marketing organisations have given up all clues as to what local people want. In different ways that's the message of http://www.wwdemocracy.nildram.co.uk/index.htm and www.cluetrain.com and www.nologo.org
I am pretty sure that economics has also given up asking the basic questions : what organisations do people really want around them, which are they sensible to trust? , what systematically multiplies both our capabilities (learning, doing, inventing) as producers and as fussy customers? For example, this sort of question wasn't even on the radar of Bill Emmott's talk earlier this month on saving capitalism from itself. So in my view both subjects have veered alarmingly away from human common sense; whether that means they could rediscover this by uniting in a reappraisal of where they lost touch with trust and living systems and how knowledge networks are changing world markets is a moot question Chris Macrae, Bethesda, www.valuetrue.com Sample chapter available on request from me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] on our forthcoming book published by John Wiley on how to value transparency and trust-flow across organisational systems -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robin Hanson Sent: 30 June 2003 14:27 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Marketing vs. Economics On 6/25/2003, Fabio wrote: >In economics, we are taught to think of people as utility maximizers. >However, marketers tend to be much more "cognitive" in their approach to >human behavior. People buy stuff as a result of a very contextual decision >process. In the marketing world, decisions to buy stuff are triggered by >cost and percieved benefits, what other people are buying and what people >remember about a product ... it seems more simple to postulate that >people have a set of rules that they apply to some classes of economic >behavior. ... >- Economists need to expand the repertoire of explanations. Economists >should learn how to model rule-based behaviors and interactions with the >same ease as they can calculate a Langrangian multiplier. Econ 101 should >start with a speech saying how people sometimes apply rules to economic >behavior and at other times they act like classical utility maximizers. >Students will then learn marginal analysis and models that embody rules >based behaviors. The usual response to "someone ought to do X" is "why not you?". Introductory classes must meet a lot of constraints. They must prepare those who will continue in the tools that are actually used at higher levels. And they must give the rest some tools they can actually use to understand some phenomena around them. Yes, some people are having some success in explaining some kinds of behavior with rules, but such papers have hardly taken over the journals. And I'm somewhat at a loss to think of what particular rules I would teach GMU undergraduates to take up half of an Econ 101 class. Of course one could just grab material from current marketing 101 classes. But is learning to market really that important? Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
