Rationality Gone Awry?

HUGH SCHWARTZ is Visiting Professor in the Department of Economics at the Federal University of Parana in Brazil./e He has taught at the University of Kansas, Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University and served as a Senior Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank. He left the bank to devote more time to the interrelationship between psychology and economics, particularly with respect to entrepreneurial decision makers.

Traditional economic and financial theory is being challenged because normative, prescriptive models derived from it are not predicting the behavior of successful producers, investors, or consumers as well as anticipated. Economists and psychologists are documenting anomalies at the individual level, in financial markets, and in natural economic settings. This opens the larger question of the importance of psychological, sociological, and other phenomena for financial and economic behavior. It even raises the issue of what economic rationality really is. This book surveys and examines the increasing evidence of economic anomalies. It argues for an eventual, comprehensive behavioral framework for economics and finance, but in the interim, indicates how the tendency to use rules of thumb might be taken into account to improve predictions about decision making.The book is aimed at those, including business executives and students, with intermediate-level preparation in economics or finance. Part I, however, is accessible to those with only an introductory course. Part II should prove useful to professionals in economics and finance who seek a solid introduction to this area. The presentation speculates about possible applications of a behavioral analysis to past and present public policy issues. It closes with guidelines for decision making that suggest how, in the absence of a comprehensive behavioral theory of economics and finance, to improve prediction about decision making by taking into account the heuristics, or rules of thumb, used by decision makers and the biases that those heuristics involve.

Gives perspective to the increasing evidence of financial and economic anomalies and argues for a comprehensive behavioral framework for economics and finance.

PrefaceIntroductionThe Basic ArgumentThe OverviewEconomic and Financial Decision Making: A Behavioral ApproachBehavioral ConsiderationsWhat Do Individuals and Enterprises Seek? The Objective(s) Underlying Economic and Financial DecisionsImplementing the Objectives: Characteristics of the ProcessMajor Anomalies and the Presumed Rationality of Financial and Economic BehaviorExpectations and Expected ProfitsBehavioral FinancePossible ApplicationsGuidelines for Decision MakingAppendicesAppendix A: Rules of Thumb (Heuristics)Appendix B: Entrepreneurial Response to Economic Liberalization and IntegrationWhere To Go From Here: Bibliographical SuggestionsIndex