[lbo-talk] Economics drivel

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Barkley:
>      Behavioral economics clearly reflects a major 
> multidisciplinary input into econ, with elements coming
> from psychology especially (what do people want and
> how do they really behave?) as well as sociology and
> philosophy and some other areas.  The current grad
> micro texts still do not talk about the endowment effect
> or much of any of the rest of this stuff.  Preferences are 
> C-infinity smooth, which is violated by the endowment 
> effect, and lots of other standard stuff goes out the
> window once one takes the behavioral/experimental
> stuff seriously.

My impression is that this marriage of economics, psychology, and
sociology is coming mostly from Europe, whereas here the Chicago school
still rules, and 'economic sociology' or economic psychology' is popular
mainly among sociologists and psychologists as well as the folks
studying organizational behavior, nonprofit sector, path dependencies
and the like.  There seems to be a positivistic bias in the US, which
dominates conventional economics, but political science, urban planning,
and to a lesser degree psychology and sociology are also infested with
it.

Wojtek