Predictably Rational? In Search of Defenses for Rational Behavior in Economics

by Richard B. McKenzie

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.

Genres: Economics, Psychology

330 pages, Paperback

First published October 21, 2009

Reviews

[Abhilasha Gulhane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked every concept was backed by experimental details. Few of the behavioral patterns were completed new.

[Ale Fernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

The inspiration to my crazy dream of a PHD

[Mooncalf · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author implicitly talks as though greater rationality as, though it was not all that useful and very hard to attain.

Also, I think it's important to have a word for rationality in the sense "the rules of thought that best achieve your goals" and that it is a more important concept than "that thing that somewhat successful humans do". So I am not really comfortable with him calling the second one of those 'rationality'.

[Josh Czinger · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book got its basic point across very quickly and turned into a desperate attempt to convince me of something i think is elementary to anyone who has studied economics, sociology, psychology, or merely lived with other human beings for any length of time.

[Chris Callaway]

A response to Ariely's work, obviously. Reviews seem lukewarm.