Learning and Visceral Temptation in Dynamic Saving Experiments

This paper tests two explanations for apparent undersaving in life cycle models: bounded rationality and a preference for immediacy. Each was addressed in a separate experimental study. In the first study, subjects saved too little initially—providing evidence for bounded rationality—but learned to save optimally within four repeated life cycles. In the second study, thirsty subjects who consume beverage sips immediately, rather than with a delay, show greater relative overspending, consistent with quasi-hyperbolic discounting models. The parameter estimates of overspending obtained from the second study, but not the first, are in range of several empirical studies of saving (with an estimated β = 0.6–0.7)

On the tangled discourse between transaction costs economics and competence-based views of the firms: Some comments

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A reconstructive critique of IPE and GPE from a critical scientific realist perspective: An alternative Keynesian-Kaleckian approach

This paper offers, first, a critique of the relative lack of economic theory in ‘British’ Global Political Economy and then use of neoclassical rational choice theory in American mainstream IPE from the perspective of critical scientific realism. Keynesian economic theories provide perhaps the most obvious alternative. Keynes’ General Theory has been followed by many, forming also the basis of Minsky’s long ignored but now, after the 2008-9 crisis, all of a sudden famous explorations on the mechanisms of financial markets. While a major leap forward, we argue that these theories are historically and conceptually limited. Keynes’ critique of neoclassical economic theory and his alternative theories of particularly the effective demand and of money and credit can be strengthened by following also a neo-Kaleckian approach which avoids some of the inconsistencies of neo-Keynesianism. We indicate where further conceptual work is required and provide several illustrations from the neo-Kaleckian and neo-Keynesian theory to suggest a partial agenda of further scientific work including the explanation of unnecessary and undesired global fluctuations, tendencies and crises and possible collective responses to them. We also suggest the possibility of going beyond Keynes and Kalecki in terms of a general field theory of global political economy that can accommodate the deep normative and institutional underpinnings of the historically evolving planetary political economy

A Very Reasonable Objective Still Beyond Our Reach: Economics as an Empirically Disciplined Social Science

The paper discusses some fundamental features of the 'Simonian' research program in microeconomics and compare them with two streams of thought which find their roots into Simon's pathbreaking work since the '50s and '60s, namely Transaction Cost Economics and Evolutionary Economics. One argues that the latter is in a particularly promising position to advance toward the kind of empirically disciplined microeconomics advocated by Herbert Simon. It does so also through painstaking attempts to operationalize the notion of 'bounded rationality' - in the broadest sense -, to make bridges with the microevidence from other social sciences - e.g. cognitive and social psychology, etc.-, and to "open up the organizational blackbox". And all that is undertaken outside the straightjacket of any religious committment to equilibrium analysis.Herbert Simon; Evolutionary Economics; Transaction Cost Economics; Bounded Rationality; Organization.

Rules of Thumb in Life-Cycle Saving Decisions

We analyse life-cycle saving decisions when households use simple heuristics, or rules of thumb, rather than solve the underlying intertemporal optimization problem. We simulate life-cycle saving decisions using three simple rules and compute utility losses relative to the solution of the optimization problem. Our simulations suggest that utility losses induced by following simple decision rules are relatively low. Moreover, the two main saving motives re ected by the canonical life-cycle model { long-run consumption smoothing and short-run insurance against income shocks { can be addressed quite well by saving rules that do not require computationally demanding tasks such as backward induction

Survey Expectations

This paper focuses on survey expectations and discusses their uses for testing and modeling of expectations.Alternative models of expectations formation are reviewed and the importance of allowing for heterogeneity of expectations is emphasized. A weak form of the rational expectations hypothesis which focuses on average expectationsrather than individual expectations is advanced. Other models of expectations formation, such as the adaptive expectations hypothesis, are briefly discussed. Testable implications of rational and extrapolative models of expectationsare reviewed and the importance of the loss function for the interpretation of the test results is discussed. The paper thenprovides an account of the various surveys of expectations, reviews alternative methods of quantifying the qualitative surveys, and discusses the use of aggregate and individual survey responses in the analysis of expectations and for forecasting