How Behavioural Economics Relates to Psychology - Some Bibliographic Evidence

Braesemann, F. (2019). How behavioural economics relates to psychology–some bibliographic evidence. Journal of Economic Methodology, 26(2), 1, 133-146, 2018 DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2018.1511257

21 Pages Posted: 24 Oct 2019

See all articles by Fabian Braesemann

Fabian Braesemann

University of Oxford - Oxford Internet Institute

Date Written: August 23, 2018

Abstract

Whether behavioural economics has a fundamental influence on economics is debated by behavioural and heterodox economists as well as by methodologists and historians of economics. At the core of this debate is the question whether behavioural economics is shaped by large-scale content imports from psychology, or whether these transfers have been too selective to challenge dominant approaches in economics. This study contributes to the debate in analysing a variety of bibliographic data from the disciplinary boundary between economics and psychology. Two datasets from the boundary of behavioural economics and psychology are compared to sets of economic and psychology publications in quantifying the use of mathematics, the share of empirical contributions, the authors’ academic background, and their cross-citations via network analysis. In contrast to proposals made by some methodologists and behavioural economists, the statistical results confirm content transfers from psychology via behavioural economics only to a limited extend. The observed level of interaction provides evidence for a selective import of specific psychological findings by a small number of established investigators in behavioural economics. These findings were then intensively debated as divergences from rationality within the growing, but econ-centered community of behavioural economists.

Keywords: Economic methodology, Citation analysis, Behavioral economics, Social network analysis, Bibliographic data mining

JEL Classification: A12, B4, C8

Suggested Citation

Braesemann, Fabian, How Behavioural Economics Relates to Psychology - Some Bibliographic Evidence (August 23, 2018). Braesemann, F. (2019). How behavioural economics relates to psychology–some bibliographic evidence. Journal of Economic Methodology, 26(2), 1, 133-146, 2018 DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2018.1511257, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3470361

Fabian Braesemann (Contact Author)

University of Oxford - Oxford Internet Institute ( email )

1 St Giles
University of Oxford
Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 3JS
United Kingdom

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