I've thought about this, in my own way, that neo-classical theory has
value as a planning instrument.
As behavioral science, of course, it is on more dubious ground. But in
the context of planning, you
have some model of benefit derived from something like a demand curve.
Then you are left with
a demand curve that reflects behavior that is not rational, in the n-c
sense. On some level this
seems to be a problem.
Father Devine always says benefit would be determined democratically by
some assembly of
the masses, whereupon I would ask, o.k. you're an economist and you walk
into such an
assembly, do you have anything to offer?
I am deeply skeptical of economists playing doctor with brain waves.
The behavioral work
as far as individuals are concerned (there isn't much yet AFAIK on
governments) seems more
relevant.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I think this is bass-ackwards. In so far as economics is something worth doing, it's a branch of
control engineering - most of the useful parts of economics are to do with the optimisation of
production and distribution processes, or the large-scale behaviour of complicated recursive
systems. "Explaining human behaviour" is exactly the sort of thing that economists ought
to stay out of. So my view would be that if you find yourself looking down an MRI scanner into
someone's brain to try and find out what they're thinking, this is a good sign that you're messing
about in something that isn't economics, and you should go away and write something about
unemployment or share prices or trade instead. Behavioural and neuro- economics are clever and
inventive answers to questions that shouldn't have been asked. Don't get me started on
"Freakonomics".
(I include by citation my periodic sermon how extraordinarily *little* of
economics as a subject is dependent on any particular view about rationality or
human behaviour, and indeed my specific point that the Soviet Academy managed
to reproduce most of the important theorems in Samuelson's book by considering
properties of linear programming systems).
best
dd
On Sep 5, 2008, at 9:03 AM, Jim Devine wrote:
I think if economists are trying to explain human behavior using MRIs,
PET scans, etc., they should change their approach. Rather than
starting with homo economicus, they should start with neuroeconomic
results and then try to summarize its conclusions with a model.
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