Category Archives: Psychology

On ‘Coherence’ in Asset Markets: Everything is Going According to Plan

Posted on September 23, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

The author of the Philosophical Economics blog has a post up that caught my attention on the supply and demand dynamics of asset markets. It caught my attention because it looked, at first, very similar to my own dissertation that … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Media/Journalism, Psychology, Toward a General Theory of Pricing | 16 Comments

Is Economics a Science? Dogmatic Economics Vs. Reflective Economics

Posted on September 22, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

The question asked in the title of this post is actually somewhat of a trick. It is a trick because it all depends upon how you define ‘science’. Often when people say that economics is a science what they are … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Philosophy, Psychology | 42 Comments

Economists: An Anthropological View

Posted on August 20, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

‘Life Among The Econ‘ is a satirical paper written by the economist Axel Leijonhufvud and published in 1973. In the paper Leijonhufvud refers directly the great work of cultural anthropology The Savage Mind by the French Structuralist anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology | 7 Comments

Is There Such Thing as an ‘Economics-Based Psychotic Delusion’?

Posted on August 11, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

There is a somewhat well-known phenomenon called Jerusalem Syndrome that has gained some currency in popular culture (you can see some TV clips from the 1990s here). The folk legend goes something like this: people who are perfectly well-balanced psychologically … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology | 14 Comments

The ‘Information Asymmetry’ Paradigm is Vacuous

Posted on August 1, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Sympathetic Post-Keynesian types often ask me what I think of the whole ‘asymmetric information’ paradigm. They’re often struck when I say that I think that its vacuous. After all doesn’t this paradigm undermine the dreaded General Equilibrium theory? Well yes … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Psychology | 10 Comments

I’m Pointing at the Moon, You’re Looking at My Finger: Janet Yellen on Post-Keynesian Economics

Posted on May 15, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Here’s an interesting fact that I’ll bet many of you didn’t know: the current head of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, wrote a short paper in 1980 examining the theories of the Post-Keynesians. You can find it here. The paper … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Philosophy, Psychology | 26 Comments

Why Economists Fail to Make ‘Rational’ Judgments and Why You Should Too

Posted on May 2, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Recently Cameron Murray directed me to an interesting paper entitled Do Economists Recognize an Opportunity Cost When They See One? A Dismal Performance from the Dismal Science. The paper surveyed a whole bunch of professional economists to see if they … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Psychology | 46 Comments

What Constitutes a Money Crank?

Posted on April 7, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

I’ve been asking myself that question rather a lot in the past two weeks. This is because I have had two separate commissions for pieces of writing that require me jump down the rabbit hole into the land of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Politics, Psychology | 19 Comments

A Man’s World: Is Gender the Key Explanatory Factor Behind the Modelling Tendency in Economics?

Posted on March 26, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Some time ago I made a remark that the bias toward mathematical modelling in economics might have to do with the male bias of the discipline. More specifically, I argued that models provided a stand-in for the economist’s own person … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Philosophy, Psychology, Statistics and Probability | 2 Comments

Marginalist Microeconomics is a Highly Normative Ethical Doctrine

Posted on March 10, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

In a recent post Lord Keynes raises the question of the so-called ‘law’ of diminishing marginal utility. The ‘law’ states that we will derive ever diminishing satisfaction from the acquisition of a good or service. Lord Keynes notes that this … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Philosophy, Psychology | 22 Comments