Spiegler, R;
(2019)
Behavioral Economics and the Atheoretical Style.
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
, 11
(2)
10.1257/mic.20170007.
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Abstract
Behavioral economics is widely perceived to be part of the profession's shift away from a culture that places abstract theory at its center. I present a critical discussion of the atheoretical style with which "behavioral" themes are often disseminated: a purely anecdotal style in popular expositions, simplistic cost-benefit modeling in pieces that target a wide audience of academic economists, and the practice of capturing psychological forces by distorting familiar functional forms. I argue that the subject of "psychology and economics" is intrinsically foundational, and that a heavier dose of abstract theorizing is essential for it to realize its transformative potential.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Behavioral Economics and the Atheoretical Style |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1257/mic.20170007 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1257/mic.20170007 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of American Economic Association publications for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not distributed for profit or direct commercial advantage and that copies show this notice on the first page or initial screen of a display along with the full citation, including the name of the author. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than AEA must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. The author has the right to republish, post on servers, redistribute to lists and use any component of this work in other works. For others to do so requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Permissions may be requested from the American Economic Association Administrative Office. Copyright © 2018 AEA. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Economics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10055478 |
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