Behavioral Economics

HANDBOOK OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE: PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMIC, pp. 641-690, Uskali Mäki ed., Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2012

76 Pages Posted: 15 Jan 2007 Last revised: 6 Jul 2011

See all articles by Erik Angner

Erik Angner

Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University; Institute for Futures Studies; Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science

George Loewenstein

Carnegie Mellon University - Department of Social and Decision Sciences

Date Written: January 14, 2007

Abstract

Behavioral economics is the effort to increase the explanatory and predictive power of economic theory by providing it with more psychologically plausible foundations. Behavioral economics, which recently emerged as a bona fide subdiscipline of economics, raises a number of questions of a philosophical, methodological, and historical nature. This chapter offers a survey of behavioral economics, including its historical origins, results, and methods; its relationship to neighboring fields; and its philosophical and methodological underpinnings. Our central thesis is that the development of behavioral economics in important respects parallels the development of cognitive science. Both fields are based on a repudiation of the positivist methodological strictures that were in place at their founding and a belief in the legitimacy of making reference to unobservable entities such as beliefs, emotions, and heuristics. And both fields adopt an interdisciplinary approach, admitting evidence of many kinds and using a variety of methods to generate such evidence. Moreover, there are in fact more direct links between the two fields. The single most important source of inspiration for behavioral economists has been behavioral decision research, which can in turn be seen as an integration of ideas from cognitive science and economics. Exploring the parallels between the two endeavors, we attempt to show, can shed light on the historical origins of, and the specific form taken by, behavioral economics.

Keywords: Behavioral Economics, Cognitive Science, History, Philosophy, Methodology

JEL Classification: B20. B40, D00, D60

Suggested Citation

Angner, Erik and Loewenstein, George F., Behavioral Economics (January 14, 2007). HANDBOOK OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE: PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMIC, pp. 641-690, Uskali Mäki ed., Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2012, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=957148

Erik Angner (Contact Author)

Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University ( email )

Universitetsvägen 10 D
Frescati
Stockholm, 106 91
Sweden

HOME PAGE: http://erikangner.com

Institute for Futures Studies ( email )

Holländargatan 13
Stockholm, SE-101 31
Sweden

HOME PAGE: http://www.iffs.se/en/research/researchers/erik-angner-1/

Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science ( email )

400P Truland Building
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
United States

HOME PAGE: http://ices.gmu.edu/people/affiliated-faculty

George F. Loewenstein

Carnegie Mellon University - Department of Social and Decision Sciences ( email )

Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
United States
412-268-8787 (Phone)
412-268-6938 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
7,551
Abstract Views
24,531
Rank
1,656
PlumX Metrics