Decentrilazation as ability to adapt

No abstract availableEconomics ;

The surprising place of cognitive psychology in the work of F.A. Hayek

In 1920, when Hayek was a student, he wrote a manuscript on cognitive psychology, which was published in 1952 as The Sensory Order. From the 1920s to the early 1940s Hayek developed his business cycle theory. The perceptions of economic agents play a central part in this theory. Contrary to what one might expect, however, none of the mental mechanisms of his earlier theory on perception and cognition play a part in his economics. The answer to this apparent anomaly lies in the programmatic character of the whole of Hayek''s work, and in the specific way in which his ideas evolved. His psychology played a prominent role in the later development of his ideas. If Hayek''s psychology influenced his early economics, it did so indirectly, by shaping his methodology. However, there may also be a common influence underlying both Hayek''s psychology and his economic methodology.Economics ;

Is the past really what is used to be ?

No abstract availableEconomics ;

If bad money is a collective bad, isn't good money a collective good?

During the current crisis we have discovered that a sick monetary and financial system and bad money are a collective bad. But if that is the case, then is it not reasonable to consider a sound monetary and financial system and good money to be a collective good? One of the reasons economists have not taken up this simple idea is that they have treated money as too homogenous a phenomenon – apart from the fact that economics has never been able to satisfactorily explain why money exists at all. In addition, the great majority of economists were unprepared for the world financial crisis and for the crisis of the euro because they have neglected three basic lessons of economics. By distinguishing different levels of interaction between economic and political agents, I will show that the idea of money as a private good (excludable and rival) with positive and negative externalities cannot fully account for either the positive or the negative effects of money. The concept of money as a collective good (non excludable and non rival) also has its defects. Money as a club good (excludable and non rival) comes closer to accounting for its peculiarities. But the global character of money leads me to conclude that it is better analyzed as a common pool good (non excludable and non rival), at least at the level at which attempts are undertaken to stabilize the world monetary andfinancial system. I apply Elinor Ostrom’s work on common pool resources to the analysis of money, and in particular of the euro and its vicissitudes. This throws more light on the nature and functions of money, and perhaps even on its existence. There is, however, one crucial difference between the problems of the sustainable natural resources that Ostrom studies and the sustainability of money. Natural resources, if not overused to complete exhaustion, may replenish themselves without human intervention, a process that may be stimulated by an adequate governance system. In the case of social or cultural resources such as money (which is a “social construct”), however, the governance system is part of the resource itself. This leaves intact, but complicates, the relationship between the stock or pool (which in the case of money is trust) that produces a flow of products (monetary and financial services). In order for the stock to be maintained and to continue yielding its services (so: to be a renewable resource), continuous investments are needed. This is a central idea in Friedrich von Hayek’s capital theory, which may be used to improve Ostrom’s analysis. So, in order to return to a sound global monetary and financial system, and to save the euro, we should invest in trust. How this can be done is a largely unexplored domain, but I will show that the way European politicians have been acting during the euro crisis is exemplary of how not to solve this problem. Getting the global and the European monetary and financial systems back on track is a complex problem of collective action, which - as Ostrom has shown - is at the centre of the governance of all common pool goods. The story of the euro is a perfect illustration

Dissecting the Shared Genetic Architecture of Suicide Attempt, Psychiatric Disorders, and Known Risk Factors

Background Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide, and nonfatal suicide attempts, which occur far more frequently, are a major source of disability and social and economic burden. Both have substantial genetic etiology, which is partially shared and partially distinct from that of related psychiatric disorders. Methods We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 29,782 suicide attempt (SA) cases and 519,961 controls in the International Suicide Genetics Consortium (ISGC). The GWAS of SA was conditioned on psychiatric disorders using GWAS summary statistics via multitrait-based conditional and joint analysis, to remove genetic effects on SA mediated by psychiatric disorders. We investigated the shared and divergent genetic architectures of SA, psychiatric disorders, and other known risk factors. Results Two loci reached genome-wide significance for SA: the major histocompatibility complex and an intergenic locus on chromosome 7, the latter of which remained associated with SA after conditioning on psychiatric disorders and replicated in an independent cohort from the Million Veteran Program. This locus has been implicated in risk-taking behavior, smoking, and insomnia. SA showed strong genetic correlation with psychiatric disorders, particularly major depression, and also with smoking, pain, risk-taking behavior, sleep disturbances, lower educational attainment, reproductive traits, lower socioeconomic status, and poorer general health. After conditioning on psychiatric disorders, the genetic correlations between SA and psychiatric disorders decreased, whereas those with nonpsychiatric traits remained largely unchanged. Conclusions Our results identify a risk locus that contributes more strongly to SA than other phenotypes and suggest a shared underlying biology between SA and known risk factors that is not mediated by psychiatric disorders.Peer reviewe

The mind-body problem and social evolution

Not availabl

Mind, market and society : network structures in the work of F.A. Hayek

How markets emerge, function, and remain in existence (or are reproduced) are problems that economists have hardly addressed. One of the exceptions is Friedrich Hayek. Between the second half of the 1930s and the early 1960s he formulated a number of ideas about these topics. Historically, these were inspired by his very early work on cognitive psychology, which in the 1950s was one of the sources of neural network models. Among the features that found their way from his cognitive psychology into his market models are the distributed nature of knowledge in a system and its coordination by means of a self organizing process. Systematically, Hayek's ideas on markets and competition are part of his larger research programme in economics. This programme aimed at developing a theory of disequilibrium growth in an intertemporal general equilibrium framework. Hayek's writings do not constitute a systematic theory of dynamic market phenomena. However, they contain a number of insights that have hardly been noticed. With hindsight, we may observe that these ideas are part of what sociologists would call a network model. The main characteristics of such models are described. Some recent applications of sociological network theory to market phenomena, notably by Harrison White and Ronald Burt, are very much in the spirit of Hayek, without being influenced by him. The same is the case within economics, where network approaches are much rarer. The economists Alan Kirman and Robert Gilles have indicated ways to develop network models for understanding markets. Like Hayek's ideas, these are extensions of a general equilibrium approach. An economist who was inspired by Hayek but who does not explicitly present his analysis as a network model is George Richardson. The works mentioned have not been integrated, and together they cover the problems of the emergence, functioning and reproduction of markets in a very gappy way. It is argued that Hayek's later work in evolutionary social theory may be used to make progress. The first appendix summarizes Hayek's cognitive psychology, the second discusses some historical questions related to its influence on the rest of his work