Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Jul;3(7):666-670.
doi: 10.1038/s41562-019-0617-3. Epub 2019 May 27.

A synthesis of behavioural and mainstream economics

Robert J Aumann  1
Affiliations
Review

A synthesis of behavioural and mainstream economics

Robert J Aumann. Nat Hum Behav. 2019 Jul.

Erratum in

Abstract

Mainstream economic theory is based on the rationality assumption: that people act as best they can to promote their interests. In contrast, behavioural economics holds that people act by behavioural rules of thumb, often with poor results. We propose a synthesis according to which people indeed act by rules, which usually work well, but may work poorly in exceptional or contrived scenarios. The reason is that like physical features, behavioural rules are the product of evolutionary processes; and evolution works on the usual, the common-not the exception, not the contrived scenario.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Simon, H.A. Administrative Behavior (Macmillan, 1947).
    1. Newell, A., Shaw, C. & Simon, H.A. The process of creative thinking. in Contemporary Approaches to Creative Thinking (eds. Gruber, H. E., Terrell, G., & Wertheimer, M.) 63–119 (Atherton, 1962).
    1. Hetzel, R. L. Econ. Q. 93, 1–30 (2007).
    1. Friedman, M. The methodology of positive economics. in Essays in Positive Economics 3–43 (U. Chicago Press, 1953).
    1. Siegel, S. & Goldstein, D. A. J. Exp. Psychol. 57, 37–42 (1959). - DOI

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources