The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity
by Tim Wu · 4 Nov 2025 · 246pp · 65,143 words
its “Penalty of Leadership” advertisement. For more on the invention of branding, see The Attention Merchants, chapters 4 and 10. *4 In the jargon of rational choice theory, it influences the “option set”—that is, the group of things you consider to be an option for a given decision. *5 Rather unfairly, the
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk
by Peter L. Bernstein · 23 Aug 1996 · 415pp · 125,089 words
: University of California Press. Heilbroner, Robert L., 1995. Visions of the Future. New York: New York Public Library/Oxford University Press. Herrnstein, Richard J., 1990. "Rational Choice Theory: Necessary But Not Sufficient." American Psychologist, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 356-367. Herrnstein, Richard J., and Drazen Prelec, 1991. "Melioration: A Theory of Distributed
Strategy: A History
by Lawrence Freedman · 31 Oct 2013 · 1,073pp · 314,528 words
a theory deserving of the accolade “social science” in which all propositions could both be deduced from a strong theory and then validated empirically. Though rational choice theory consistently delivered far less than promised, and its underlying assumptions became vulnerable to a fundamental challenge from cognitive psychology, it was promoted effectively and in
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represent the most logical outcome to the strategic game and would set the terms for future empirical work. A key figure in the development of rational choice theory at RAND was Kenneth Arrow, who developed the “impossibility theorem” that explained why democratic systems do not always produce outcomes that conform to the wishes
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and Ian Shapiro observed that despite all the effort, what had been learned about politics was “exceedingly little.”13 They addressed one standard problem for rational choice theory which suggested that it would be irrational for anyone to vote since the time invested in the process would have to be set against the
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on both sides. It was, however, starting to be reshaped by new research, bringing insights from psychology and neuroscience into economics. The standard critique of rational choice theory was that people were just not rational in the way that the theory assumed. Instead, they were subject to mental quirks, ignorance, insensitivity, internal contradictions
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information and analyze probabilities with mathematical precision, it could never capture actual human behavior. As we have seen, the urge to scientific rigor that animated rational choice theory only really got going once actors sorted out their preferences and core beliefs. The actors came to the point where their calculations might be translated
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the brain.” Rationality was not an assumption but a methodological stance, reflecting a decision to view the individual as the unit of agency.9 If rational choice theory was to be challenged on its own terms, the alternative methodological stance had to demonstrate that it not only approximated better to perceived reality but
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Economics versus Economics as Strategy,” Managerial and Decision Economics 24, no. 4 (June–July 2003): 287. 13. Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), X. One counterattack appeared in Jeffery Friedman, ed
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., “Rational Choice Theory and Politics,” Critical Review 9, no. 1–2 (1995). 14. Stephen Walt, “Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies,” International Security 23, no.
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, Co-Opetition, 56–58. 7. Introduction in Jon Elster, ed., Rational Choice (New York: New York University Press, 1986), 16. Green and Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory, 20 (see chap. 36, n. 13) cite Elster to demonstrate the burdens strict criteria place on researchers. Elster was an early advocate for
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rational choice theory who later became disenchanted. 8. On the inability of individuals to manage formal reasoning and understand statistical methods, see John Conlisk, “Why Bounded Rationality?” Journal
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–517, 576 Galambos, Louis, 498 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 418–419, 491–492, 501 Gallup, George, 437 Galula, David, 188–189, 224 game theory. See also rational choice theory The Bible and, 11 coalitions and, 582–583 cooperation and, 584–587 economics and, 514–515 Fortune magazine and, 495 free-rider problem and, 583
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, 513 nuclear strategy and, 161–162, 168 quantitative emphasis of, 147–148, 150, 152–153, 513–514 rational choice theory and, 575–577 Randolph, A. Philip, 356 Raphals, Lisa, 43 Rapoport, Anatol, 585 Rapport, Mike, 250 rational choice theory. See also game theory bounded rationality and, 592 brain physiology and, 592 criteria for, 591 economics discipline
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coalitions, 581–583 game theory and, 577–578, 580, 587 heresthetics and, 588 political science discipline and, 577, 579, 587 quantitative analysis emphasis of, 579 rational choice theory and, 589–590 University of Rochester and, 579 Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, The (Mintzberg), 504 Rizzi, Bruno, 334 Road to Serfdom, The (Hayek
The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America
by Mehrsa Baradaran · 7 May 2024 · 470pp · 158,007 words
, it assumed that market actors generally or mostly held rational expectations about future market prices. Rational expectations theory is itself a companion to another theory, rational choice theory, which proved that individuals’ choices were based in rational self-interest. Together, these theories portrayed the market as a well-ordered mechanism that moved predictably
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, 304–5 Rand, Ayn, 4, 9, 18, 29, 183–85, 188–91, 235, 327 Atlas Shrugged, 183–85, 190–91 The Fountainhead, 29, 183, 190 rational choice theory, 234 rational decision making, 163, 166, 233, 247 rational market theory, 297, 351 Raytheon, 357 Reagan, Ronald, and administration, xxxvi, 7, 25, 66–68, 92
The Irrational Economist: Making Decisions in a Dangerous World
by Erwann Michel-Kerjan and Paul Slovic · 5 Jan 2010 · 411pp · 108,119 words
perceived odds of winning. Yet, smart people would knowingly violate this logical advice. The vigorous debates about how widely accepted various “self-evident” principles of rational choice theory are raised two challenges for decision analysis. First, if not everyone buys into them, how rational can they really be? Second, if decision analysts use
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—the use of a particular type of theory that is inherently agnostic about brain mechanisms (i.e., rational choice theory). I think that this claim is provably false because many economists have used other approaches than rational choice theory when it has proved interesting or useful to do so (e.g., learning and evolutionary theories applied
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and Psychophysical models Psychophysical numbing Public policy changes in Public sector, roles/responsibilities of Racial superiority, theories of Radiation, exposure to Raiffa, Howard Rational actors Rational choice theory Rational fools Rational model Rationality alternative plans and bounded classic constructed choice and economic emotion and definitions of standard of testing Rawls, John Reagan, Ronald
Culture and Prosperity: The Truth About Markets - Why Some Nations Are Rich but Most Remain Poor
by John Kay · 24 May 2004 · 436pp · 76 words
are drawn to social sciences by their interest in people and affairs; but a large number, perhaps most, do not find this interest satisfied by rational-choice theories and mathematical models. Particularly women: while other social sciences-anthropology, law, psychology, and sociology-now generally have a majority of female students, men predominate in
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
by Francis Fukuyama · 11 Apr 2011 · 740pp · 217,139 words
order arising from norms that are either moral, coercive, or authoritative. He goes on to review Evans-Pritchard’s The Nuer through the lens of rational-choice theory, a model that grounds behavior in radical individualism. He argues that many of the choices made by Nuer families or segments in dealing with one
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics
by Richard H. Thaler · 10 May 2015 · 500pp · 145,005 words
mean right in some moral sense; instead, I mean logically consistent, as prescribed by the optimizing model at the heart of economic reasoning, sometimes called rational choice theory. That is the only way I will use the word “normative” in this book. For instance, the Pythagorean theorem is a normative theory of how
Willful: How We Choose What We Do
by Richard Robb · 12 Nov 2019 · 202pp · 58,823 words
but routinely misses the mark. Behavioral economists hope that identifying biases will help people mend their ways and act in conformity with economic models. If rational choice theory conceives of people as robots whose behavior is determined by their preferences, then behavioral economists believe that those robots are badly programmed. Both rational choice
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annoyances that had cropped up at my job, but I didn’t like it at all. My dissatisfaction didn’t arise from low income, as rational choice theory would suggest. My time at DKB had left me with ample savings, and I spent a few hours each week trading for myself. (More on
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the orthodoxy altogether. In a way, my experience trading bonds in Chicago, working at DKB, and starting a hedge fund actually reinforced my faith in rational choice theory. Practically every day, useful insight came from assuming that people optimized and markets were in equilibrium. Economic theory often felt like my secret weapon. The
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stable preferences among the three key axioms of neoclassical economics (along with optimizing behavior and markets in equilibrium).2 If our tastes bounced around randomly, rational choice theory would lack its predictive power. Of course, we may prefer a cold drink in the summer and a hot one in the winter. We may
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(or the inclination) to devote yourself to philanthropy full time. If you complained about your dilemma, you’d find no sympathy. You’re rich! And rational choice theory would offer no support: you have all the same options as before, plus the new ones that your wealth opens up. According to for-itself
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blinders. If doubt lingers, we can work to make existing beliefs feel rational—to “rationalize” them. These sorts of considerations can’t be modeled by rational choice theory unless that model includes a homunculus who sits on top of a person, controlling the adoption of beliefs and desires to form a new person
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reasonably stable preferences. If desires come and go willy-nilly, rational choice can no longer help explain our actions. Attributing them to random desires renders rational choice theory useless. The defender of purposeful choice could instead try to cast this act in terms of manners or ethics. Clearly, there is a continuum of
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, it’s good for mental agility, and so on. (I wouldn’t say I find the studying pleasant because I experience it as a chore.) Rational choice theory doesn’t require that actors be aware of how their behavior optimizes, so long as it does. Perhaps my slow, casual study of Japanese really
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It with You.” THREE Acting in Character 1. Whitman, “Song of Myself.” 2. In “Economics and Identity,” Akerlof and Kranton model identity in terms of rational choice theory. In their setup, each person is assigned to an identity group, such as gender, with corresponding tastes for different types of action. An individual’s
The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World
by Tim Harford · 1 Jan 2008 · 250pp · 88,762 words
. Those endless meetings at the office and the grotesque injustices of working life? Rational. In the hands of economists, “rational choice theory” produces an X-ray image of human life. Like the X-ray, rational choice theory does not show everything. Nor is the picture necessarily very pretty. But it shows you something important, and something
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complexity from intractable-seeming problems—for instance, inner-city deprivation—and guide us toward possible solutions. If crime rates are high in some areas, then rational choice theory says that crime must pay in those areas: We need to look for a way of raising the cost or lowering the benefit of committing
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crime. If inner-city teenagers don’t have qualifications, then rational choice theory says that they must believe the benefits of getting the qualifications are outweighed by the costs: We need to work out if they’re right
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make the assumption of rational choice a very useful one. Later in this chapter I’ll say more about what it’s useful for. But rational choice theory is not merely useful—it’s also fun. The new economics of everything—sex and crime, racism and office politics—offers us perspectives that are
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me as well as for you, that’s not what this book is about. But because Homo economicus lies behind many criticisms of economists and rational choice theory, I need to set out how this crude caricature differs from what I mean when I talk about people being rational. First, I do not
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touched by experience of AIDS. One of those reactions is an error. This is hardly a case study of perfect rationality. Does this mean that rational choice theory is as much use as flat Earth theory? No. It’s more like a perfectly-spherical-Earth theory. The Earth isn’t a perfect sphere
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likely to do so when doing something familiar, and since we all do familiar things all the time, that’s a point in favor of rational choice theory as a tool for understanding the world. It rarely pays to assume that any human being is incapable of weighing the pros and cons of
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be unwise to bet against our intuitive ability to respond rationally to incentives. The rats can. Experimenting on rats is all very well, but can rational choice theory produce the sort of analysis that really matters? Can it cut through confusion and help shape policy on a vital issue? In the hands of
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against the costs, which range from the suffering and dislocation of prisoners to the expense of running a prison. This is a remarkable application of rational choice theory. Unfortunately, politicians prefer simple ideological answers. Levitt explained to me that he had been much in demand after his work was published in the late
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into a detention home. But you can go to jail now. Jail ain’t no place to go.” I’VE REPEATEDLY STATED my belief that rational choice theory is useful. It’s time to qualify that: useful for what? Think again about Levitt’s conclusion that even teenagers respond to the threat of
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, if you look hard enough, and in the next few chapters I’ll show you how to find it. Chapter 2 describes the most demanding rational choice theory of all, game theory, which was developed by a genius and assumes that other people are geniuses. I’ll show that genius is more common
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behave rationally. But it turns out that the slot machine junkies, too, are more rational than you would suppose. This chapter traces the limits of rational choice theory as it bumps up against human fallibility. As we saw in the last chapter, economics is the study of how people react to incentives in
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understand the complexities of these interactions, we need a special branch of economics: game theory. In principle, game theory is just a special case of rational choice theory. In practice, game theorists have to be sensitive to small human irrationalities, because they have large effects when people are trying to anticipate and respond
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, then, need to understand both rational behavior and human peculiarities. Far from being fatally undermined by the psychological tics that make us all-too-human, rational choice theory is offering us insights into our inner battles—thanks to the efforts of a new type of economist more comfortable with a brain scanner than
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“egonomics,” the view of addiction as a kind of mental civil war. Now a bold new group of researchers armed with both brain scanners and rational choice theory, calling themselves “neuroeconomists,” are starting to develop a view of the brain that provides some startling evidence for Schelling’s split-personality model of decision
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more traditional dating situations without binoculars, snooping devices, and a good private investigator. There is, obviously, a lot more to love, dating, and marriage than rational choice theory, but rational choices are an important part of the story. A biologist or a poet might explain why we fall in love, and a historian
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, because there’s even less they can do about it. Sometimes, though, dictatorial leaders can push too far. It’s time to look at what rational choice theory can tell us about revolutions. FOBBING, ENGLAND, 1381 WHEN A TAX collector arrived at the Essex village of Fobbing to collect the third oppressive poll
What's Wrong With Economics: A Primer for the Perplexed
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Evidence-Based Technical Analysis: Applying the Scientific Method and Statistical Inference to Trading Signals
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Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess
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The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters
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Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution
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Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (And What We Can Do About It)
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