Game theory holds out the promise of transforming the core of economic theory from ascience of rational choice into a science of human interaction. While traditional gametheory does open into social interaction, it mostly neglects another central feature ofeconomic intuition: spontaneous...

DSGE modeling remains the workhorse of contemporary macroeconomics despite a growing number of critiques of its ability to explain the aggregate properties of an economic system. For the most part, those critiques accept the DSGE presumption that traditional macro data are primitive, causal...

Thought experiments have long been employed as a technique of analytical thinking where the theorist poses “what if” questions to some articulated model. The entities in those models are typically aggregate variables, though sometimes those variables masquerade as individuals by adopting...

Macro theories explore the properties of an economic system in its entirety, in contrast to the focus of micro theories on parts of that system. Where most macro theories reduce an economy to a representative agent, we follow Wagner (2012, 2020) in treating a macro economy as an ecology of...

We investigate the claims of behavioral paternalism in the more realistic framework of complex choice. In particular, we analyze the claims made by behavioral paternalists that predictive analytics over large amounts of data will make it possible to target and successfully implement purportedly...

Roger Koppl's admonishment against design in his book Expert Failure is a product of the richness of the world and the symmetry-breaking properties of time. Koppl grants no special powers of vision to his experts, and thus embeds them in ongoing social process where the consequences of all...

The tools and concepts of the emerging field of complexity science—like agent-based modeling, network theory, and machine learning—can offer powerful insights to economists and crafters of public policy. Complexity science enables us to explicitly model relationships between individuals and...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world adopted a variety of policies expanding the scope of their power. Some of these effects are immediate and observable. Others, however, are not readily observable and only appear over time. We explore these long-run consequences...

In this paper, we investigate whether a statement like “the reform ought to be favored” is practically the same as “the reform would yield positive net consequences.” The first statement, featuring “ought,” is one that many economists would deem “normative,” the second,...

Game theory, as originally envisioned, is a tool to theorize about social interaction. As game theory became geared towards prediction and control, branching into mechanism and market design theory, its mathematical sophistication focused on solution spaces and, ultimately, the attainment of...