Both behavioral and neoclassical economists maintain a concept of strict rationality that is exceptionally narrow. Neoclassicists use it as a tool both to explain what agents actually do and as a prescriptive framework. Behavioralists do not believe it adequately explains actual behavior but...

Rizzo and Whitman’s Escaping Paternalism (2019) is, at once, a scholarly treatise on the nature of rationality and a powerful critique of the use of behavioral insights to support a new paternalism in public policy. Since its recent publication, it has informed research, among other things,...

The Austrian school of economics has recently made inroads into and appears may become an important perspective in the study of strategic management and entrepreneurship. Yet we see little of the prediction two decades ago that a specifically "Austrian school of strategy" would emerge (Jacobson,...

The Great Recession seems to be creating a change in the trend of macroeconomic thinking. Prior to the financial crisis of 2008, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models dominated the macroeconomics literature without any apparent challengers on the horizon. Since then, however, we...

We look at several of Elon Musk’s business ventures, forays, and interests: (1) X.com; (2) SpaceX; (3) Tesla; (4) cryptocurrency; and (5) Twitter. We discuss Musk’s decision-making and see whether behavioural economics, especially prospect theory, can help us to better understand his...

This is a review of the literature of field experimental studies of markets. The main results covered by the review are as follows: (1) Generally speaking, markets organize the efficient exchange of commodities; (2) There are some behavioral anomalies that impede efficient exchange; (3) Many...

The health care systems in the Nordic countries are facing key challenges. While the possibilities and willingness to expand health care resources are limited, the demand for health care are increasing due to continuous development of new medical technologies, changing demographics, increasing...

Utilitarian foundations for limited government are shaky insofar as they assume rational and consistent individuals. Recently economists' assumption of rational actors has come under sustained attack. Behavioural economics has suggested that people are plagued by irrational biases and...

I propose the following grand challenge question for SBE 2020: can we develop a complete theory of human behavior that is predictive in all contexts? The motivation for this question is the fact that the different disciplines within SBE do have a common subject: Homo sapiens. Therefore,...

This article introduces and discusses from a philosophical point of view the nascent field of neuroeconomics, which is the study of neural mechanisms involved in decision-making and their economic significance. Following a survey of the ways in which decision-making is usually construed in...