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Author Zouboulakis, Michel S.

Title The varieties of economic rationality : from Adam Smith to contemporary behavioural and evolutionary economics / Michel S. Zouboulakis
Published London ; New York : Routledge, 2014
©2014

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Description 1 online resource (xx, 166 pages) : illustrations
Series Routledge studies in the history of economics ; 160
Routledge studies in the history of economics ; 160.
Contents 1. Adam Smith and the idea of morally constrained rationality -- 2. John Stuart Mill and the concept of socially embedded rationality -- 3. William Stanley Jevons and the concept of rationality as maximization -- 4. Vilfredo Pareto and the concept of instrumental rationality -- 5. Lionel Robbins and consistency of choices under scarcity -- 6. Neoclassical rationality under fire: theoretical, methodological and empirical critique in the late 1930s -- 7. Three conventionalist responses: Machlup, Samuelson and Friedman -- 8. Popper's retreat and the "principle of rationality" -- 9. Probabilistic choice and strategic rationality -- 10. Herbert Simon and the concept of bounded rationality -- 11. Rationality in behavioural economics -- 12. rationality of embedded individuals
Summary The concept of economic rationality is important for the historical evolution of Economics as a scientific discipline. The common idea about this concept -even between economists- is that it has a unique meaning which is universally accepted. This new volume argues that "economic rationality" is not not a universal concept with one single meaning, and that it in fact has different, if not conflicting, interpretations in the evolution of discourse on economics. In order to achieve this, the book traces the historical evolution of the concept of economic rationality from Adam Smith to the present, taking in thinkers from Mill to Friedman, and encompassing approaches from neoclassical to behavioural economics. The book charts this history in order to reveal important instances of conceptual transformation of the meaning of economic rationality. In doing so, it presents a uniquely detailed study of the historical change of the many faces of the homo oeconomicus -- Provided by Publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 140-159) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Rational expectations (Economic theory) -- History
Rational choice theory -- History
Economics -- History.
Economics
Rational choice theory
Rational expectations (Economic theory)
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 1306375541
9781306375542
9781315818641
1315818647