Schools of Thought in Behavioral Economics
20 January 2008 at 10:30 pm Peter G. Klein 1 comment
| Peter Klein |
Gary Lynne sent me John Tomer’s paper from the June 2007 Journal of Socio-Economics, “What is Behavioral Economics?” Tomer summarizes the various strands of behavioral economics and scores each according to “narrowness,” “rigidity,” “intolerance,” “mechanicalness,” “separateness,” and “individualism.” Coverage includes the Carnegie tradition, Katona’s Michigan school, modern experimental economics, Akerlof’s behavioral macro, and more. Tomer defines the field more broadly than I would — he includes evolutionary economics à la Nelson and Winter, for example — but the commentary is insightful.
Entry filed under: - Klein -, Institutions, Methods/Methodology/Theory of Science.
Organizations and Markets 
1.
Joe Mahoney | 20 January 2008 at 10:56 pm
The Carnegie School Behavioral Economics led by Richard Cyert, Jim March and Herbert Simon influenced to varying degrees:
Penrose’s (1959) resource-based approach
Williamson’s (1975) Transaction Costs Economics; and
Nelson and Winter’s (1982) Evolutionary Economics
Clearly, the theory was neither narrow nor rigid !