Excessive Ambitions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8246735 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jon Elster (0000-0002-9543-1780, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2009-01-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Capitalism and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1932-0213 • E-ISSN: 2194-6140 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.2202/1932-0213.1055 |
| OpenAlex | W4232782240 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 17 |
| References cited | 5 |
The current financial crisis has brought out a fatal flaw in the foundations of the economic theories that guided economic agents and regulators: the unwarranted claim to precision and robustness. In this article I try to diagnose this flaw and discuss possible remedies. I argue that actual agents are intrinsically less sophisticated than the models assume they are, and that the various proposals to sustain the models by appealing to "as-if rationality" all fail. I next consider behavioral economics as an alternative to the standard models, claiming that while they may allow for successful retrodiction, they do not hold out much promise for prediction. I also discuss the use of statistical models, arguing that they are subject to so many traps and pitfalls that only a handful of elite practitioners can be trusted to use them well. Finally, I offer some speculations to explain the persistence in the economic profession and elsewhere of these useless or harmful models
Business · Economics · Elite · Law and economics · Management science · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Rationality · Risk analysis (engineering · Robustness (evolution · Subject (documents · Climate Change Policy and Economics · Computer Science · Law · Market Dynamics and Volatility · Monetary Policy and Economic Impact
Uncertainty and Narratives of the Future
Consequencialismo, pragmatismo e análise econômica do direito
The North–South Conveyor Belt Model
Motivating a Pragmatic Approach to Naturalized Social Ontology
Imagined futures
Deflation and Construction
Obscurantisme dur et obscurantisme mou dans les sciences humaines et sociales
Liberal global justice and social science
Invariance axioms and functional form restrictions in structural models
Predictive Success and Non-Individualist Models in Social Science
Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology
Reorienting Economics
Uncertainty and Enterprise
Heuristics, Interactions, and Status Hierarchies
Potentialités et limites de la simulation multi-agents
Independence and interdependence
Hard and Soft Obscurantism in the Humanities and Social Sciences
| Unique citing works | 17 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,13 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2025 (15) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 17 |