In the last decade, models of rational choice have chimed into the discussion on racial profiling, the use of race in stop and search decisions of the police. The models describe the behavior of motorists and the police and provide empirical tests to assess the question whether the police...

Routines and instincts are similar in terms of function and structure: 1) With respect to function, they economize on scarce decision-making resources, such as cognitive faculties, by making actions, within limits, inflexible vis-à-vis fluctuating environmental stimuli. As inflexible patterns,...

The continual expansion of rational choice theory to a greater range of social phenomena—from markets to politics and institutions—is a testament to its success. Each further application, however, simultaneously forecloses a potential source of inefficiency in economic systems. Abdicating...

In light of Wittman (<CitationRef CitationID="CR86">1995</CitationRef>) and Caplan (<CitationRef CitationID="CR30">2007</CitationRef>) this paper contends that the rational-choice approach to political science (“Public Choice theory”) has reached a dead end. By critiquing their treatment of rationality, knowledge assumptions, and views of the democratic process, an alternative is...</citationref></citationref>

According to a minimalist version of Afriat’s theorem, a consumer behaves as a utility maximizer if and only if a feasibility matrix associated with his choices is cyclically consistent. An “essential experiment” consists of observed consumption bundles <InlineEquation ID="IEq1"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$(x_{1}, \ldots , x_{n})$$</EquationSource> </InlineEquation> and a...</equationsource></inlineequation>

From a formal point of view, a composite indicator is an aggregate of all dimensions, objectives, individual indicators and variables used for its construction. This implies that what defines a composite indicator is the set of properties underlying its mathematical aggregation convention. In...

The 2013 pension reform in Lithuania forced workers to choose their level of participation to the second pillar system. Three options were given - a lower contribution rate, a higher contribution rate with governmental subsidy, and to exit from the second pillar system. The aim of this article...

In this Comment, I examine Christoph Hanisch’s recent contribution to this journal. In commenting on Hanisch’s essay, I offer an interpretation of Amartya Sen’s notion of ‘commitment’ which makes committed choices both uncontroversial and quotidian. This interpretation contrasts with...

Kin selection theorists argue that evolution in social contexts will lead organisms to behave as if maximizing their inclusive, as opposed to personal, fitness. The inclusive fitness concept allows biologists to treat organisms as akin to rational agents seeking to maximize a utility function....