Cognition And Economics

Written in an informal way, this book is addressed to philosophers or cognitive scientists curious of how economics deals with cognition and to graduate students in economics eager to discover how economics evolves. It aims at extending the framework of game theory in order to better fit with the results of rapidly increasing laboratory experiments concerned with individual choices and collective interactions.

The social sciences study knowing subjects and their interactions. A "cog nitive turn", based on cognitive science, has the potential to enrich these sciences considerably. Cognitive economics belongs within this movement of the social sciences. It aims to take into account the cognitive processes of individuals in economic theory, both on the level of the agent and on the level of their dynamic interactions and the resulting collective phenomena. This is an ambitious research programme that aims to link two levels of com plexity: the level of cognitive phenomena as studied and tested by cognitive science, and the level of collective phenomena produced by the economic in teractions between agents. Such an objective requires cooperation, not only between economists and cognitive scientists but also with mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists, in order to renew, study and simulate models of dynamical systems involving economic agents and their cognitive mechanisms. The hard core of classical economics is the General Equilibrium Theory, based on the optimising rationality of the agent and on static concepts of equilibrium, following a point of view systemised in the framework of Game Theory. The agent is considered "rational" if everything takes place as if he was maximising a function representing his preferences, his utility function.

In recent years the understanding of the cognitive foundations of economic behavior has become increasingly important. This volume contains contributions from such leading scholars as Adam Brandenburger, Michael Bacharach and Patrick Suppes. It will be of great interest to academics and researchers involved in the field of economics and psychology as well as those interested in political economy more generally.

Bringing together economists from various traditions such as Austrian economics, evolutionary economics, institutional economics, law and economics, neuro-economics and bio-economics, this title examines the impact of cognitive science growth on the economics discipline.

Economics, dealing with mental processes of decision makers is part of cognitive science; conversely, cognitive science, faced with constraints on information processing, is part of economics. In July 1990, the Cecoia 2 conference was organised in Paris to further explore the connections between the two. The papers presented in this volume illustrate this truly interdisciplinary research intertwining social and cognitive sciences. Three main topics are represented: agent's mental representation when facing complex uncertainty; agent's computational constraints leading to bounded rationality; agent's learning and evolution in an imperfectly known environment.

This is the first book-length work to integrate the insights of cognitive science fully into economics. It reviews a wide range of related work in both fields and proposes new approaches to choice theory, rationality, and interaction (equilibrium) that are consistent with the limited cognitive capacity of real human beings. While joining with neoclassical economics in supporting the validity of supply-and-demand theory where it is literally applicable, McCain challenges most neoclassical theory, especially monopoly, oligopoly, and general equilibrium theory and welfare economics. His work aims to further and unite recent notions of behavioral and social economics. This important work will be of interest to behavioral, social, and Keynesian economists, as well as other social scientists and philosophers interested in economic phenomena.

This book proposes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of human problem solving, choice, decision-making and change, to explain economic transactions, and the nature and evolution of organisations and institutions.

This book seeks to explain long-term economic development and institutional change in terms of the cognitive features of human learning and communication processes. Martens links individual cognitive processes to macroeconomic growth theories, including economies of scale and scope, and to theories of institutional development based on asymmetric information in production processes and economies of scale in enforcement technology. With considerable flair, Bertin Martens has applied the hot new area of psychological and behavioural economics to notions of growth and development and has created a unique and impressive volume.