Mata, T;
(2016)
Floris Heukelom. Behavioral Economics: A History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 238 pp. $90.00. ISBN: 978-1-107-03934-6.
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
, 52
(1)
pp. 80-81.
10.1002/jhbs.21755.
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Abstract
In an influential essay of 1932, Lionel Robbins of the London School of Economics wrote that economists should be wary of partnerships with psychologists. Robbins worried that since psychology “change[d] its fashion” often and suddenly, economists would be faced by the frightening prospect of regularly rewriting their discipline “from the foundations upwards.” The shifting ground of fashionable psychology could not be relied upon as bedrock for economics, and Robbins insisted that his autarkic route led to “various theorems … capable of explaining a manifold of social activity more varied and rich … than anything yet entering the psychological laboratory” (Robbins, 1932, pp. 84, 86). This judicious neglect for the motives and processes of decision-making had illustrious predecessors. Eighty years before, John Stuart Mill had discussed the method of political economy and reached similar conclusions. Mill described the model political economist as operating with a compact tool kit of “general characterizations” of economic motives. Mill assured that with only three elements, the pursuit of wealth and its two counters, an aversion for labor and the desire for the “present enjoyment of costly indulgences,” all of the laws of political economy could be derived (Mill, 1844). Between the 1840s and the 1930s, much intellect was committed to assert the autonomy of economics from its intellectual kin including but not exclusively, from psychology. Today by contrast, 80 years since Robbins’ essay, economics and psychology are involved in close and unprecedented ways. Floris Heukelom's book explains what happened. The historical focus of Behavioral Economics: a history is set on controversies in the study of decision-making under uncertainty. The book's sociological focus is set on a community of scholars on a mission to bring psychology and economics into contact and cooperation.
Type: | Article |
---|---|
Title: | Floris Heukelom. Behavioral Economics: A History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 238 pp. $90.00. ISBN: 978-1-107-03934-6 |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
DOI: | 10.1002/jhbs.21755 |
Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.21755 |
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. |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Science and Technology Studies |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10201003 |
1. | United States | 2 |
2. | United Kingdom | 1 |
3. | France | 1 |
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