Reflexivity in Economics: An Experimental Examination on the Self-Referentiality of Economic Theories

ISBN-13: 9783790825725 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 206 str.

Springer

Opis

Discusses the implications of the recursive or self-reflexive effects of economic theories on bounded rational behaviour and interaction. This title focuses on the mechanisms through which bounded rational actors perceive the self-referential nature of economic theories and might absorb their prescriptions.

Spis treści

Reflexivity and Self-Reference.- Reflexivity of Social Reality.- Reflexivity and Predictability of the Social Sciences.- On the Rationality of the Economic Actors.- Heuristics, Biases and Methods for Debiasing.- Self-Referentiality of Economic Theories and Theory Absorption.- On the Absorbability of Economic Theories – An Experimental Analysis.

Blurb

This study discusses the implications of the recursive or self-reflexive effects of economic theories on bounded rational behaviour and interaction. It focuses on the mechanisms through which bounded rational actors perceive the self-referential nature of economic theories and might absorb their prescriptions. As individuals think and are conscious of their thought, reflexivity is potentially involved in all human acts of cognition and in all conceptualizations. Further, the individuals can make use of social theories which can therefore yield recursive effects and interfere with the phenomena they aim to depict. Taking into consideration the bounded rationality of the individuals, this study investigates the modalities by means of which the recursive character of economic theorizing is perceived and the conditions under which economic theories affect behaviour, according to the results of two economic experiments focussing the absorbability of guessing-games' and informational cascades' theories.