After posting a message about the near-tautology and non- falsifiable character of the "rationality" assumption in economics, I stumbled on a prima facie case of economic IRrationality that indicates that maybe the "rationality" assumption is falsifiable: at the campus stamp machine last year, it was common for people to put 30 cents in to get a 29-cent stamp and then leave the one-cent stamp in the machine for anyone to pick up. This might be seen as rational, because these days one penny isn't worth the effort. One-cent stamps might be use- ful, but not very practical, because one might need five of them to get the right postage, taking up a big segment of the envelope... This year, with the postal rate increase, people pay 35 cents to get a 32-cent stamp. The change shows up not as three one- cent stamps, but as a three-cent stamp, which currently is one of the most useful stamps around, since it fills the gap between the old 29-cent stamps and the new. But students are still leaving their change in the machine for others to pick up! This seems totally irrational. sincerely, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Doubt all." -- Rosa Luxemburg. From: "Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics" by Donald N. McCloskey, Cambridge U. Press, 1994: "At Chicago the positivism was laid on thick, and conversations with the late George Stigler in particular were likely to be terminated by a positivist edict and a sneer. One conversation with Stigler was especially eye opening to an associate professor beginning at last in 1978 to doubt the epistemological claims of positivism. Stigler was holding forth in the bar of the faculty club on the merits of behaviorist theorists of voting, in which people are said to vote according to their pocketbooks. His younger colleague, who had just read Brian Barry's devastating attack on such models (Barry 1970 and 1978) and for ten years had been teachinf first-year graduate students about the small man in the large market (following Stigler's own exposition in "The Theory of Price, 1966, appendix B, note 7, p.342), remarked that people would be irrational to go to the polls in the first place. A single voter has as much to do with the outcome of an election as a single farmer in Hills, Iowa has to do with the price of soybeans. The voter therefore appeared to have shown by entering the voting booth that he was nuts (by an economistic definition of nuttiness), and it would be strange if he voted with his pocketbook with strict rationality after he closed the curtain. The argument struck a nerve, and Stigler because as was his custom abusively positivistic, declaring loudly that all that mattered were the observable implications. To the doubting positivist the procedure seemed to throw away some of the evidence we have. Strange: throw away some of the evidence and then proceed to examine the evidence. He noticed, too, that Stigler refused to talk any more about the matter, striding off irritated by the idiocy of the young." (p. 14) Jim Craven *---------------------------*----------------------------------------* * James Craven *"Those who take the most from the table * * Dept of Economics * teach contentment. * * Clark College * Those for whom the taxes are destined * * 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd.* demand sacrifice. * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 * Those who eat their fill, * * (206) 699-0283 * speak to the hungry, * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * of wonderful times to come. * * * Those who lead the country * * * into the abyss, * * * call ruling difficult, * * * for ordinary folk." * * * * * * ( Bertolt Brecht) * * * * "If there is to be hope, we must all 'betray' our country. We * * have to save each other because all victims are equal and none is * * more equal than others. It is everyone's duty to start the * * avalanche. Nowadays you have to think like a hero just to behave * * like a merely decent human being." * *(John Le Carre's character Barley Scott Blair in "The Russia House")* * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINIONS *