Vernon Smith (2008) argues that his experimental work is a demonstration of Friedrich Hayek's ‘ecological rationalism'. This assertion is difficult to square with Hayek's apparent dismissal of the possibility of demonstrating ‘ecological rationality' in a laboratory (documented in Smith...

The gap between the economic theory of action and the practical reality of choice (analyzed in the Aristotelian practical wisdom tradition) cannot be bridged through the development of more complex models. This poses a challenge for the use of economic models for policy analysis: they cannot...

Economists overlook an ally in the Aristotelian tradition, since both economics and Aristotle begin their analysis with human choice. Economics can learn much about its limits from the Aristotelian tradition, which describes aspects of choice behavior which cannot be precisely modeled. This...

In Catholic theology, sin is a rebellion against God and against our created nature. It is an alienation of the person from his own nature whose symptoms are rebellious passions and weakened reason. This alienation is not addressed by most economic analyses of choice, even analyses that address...

This paper examines the linkage between economic activity and tax revenues for New York State and New York City. Drawing upon the methodology of Stock and Watson, we use a dynamic single-factor model to estimate indexes of coincident economic indicators. We also construct measures of the sales...