In October 1956, the RAND Corporation established the Logistics Systems Laboratory (LSL) with the goal of using simulation to translate the broad findings of normative microeconomics into detailed, implementable procedures for US Air Force operations. The laboratory was housed in the training...

The economics profession has traditionally viewed rational choice theory as a positive scientific theory. Normative economics was associated exclusively with ethics and should be kept strictly separate from positive scientific economics. This paper argues that the profession is changing in this...

Economic theory reduces the concept of rationality to internal consistency. As far as beliefs are concerned, rationality is equated with having a prior belief over a quot;Grand State Spacequot;, describing all possible sources of uncertainties. We argue that this notion is too weak in some...

Can one deamp;#64257;ne and test the hypothesis of (un)bounded rationality in stochastic choice tasks without endorsing Bayesianism? Similar to the state speciamp;#64257;city of assets, we rely on state-speciamp;#64257;c goal formation. In a given choice task, the list of state-speciamp;#64257;c goal levels is...

This paper discusses why mathematical economists of the early Cold War period favored formal-axiomatic over behavioral choice theories. One reason was that formal-axiomatic theories allowed mathematical economists to improve the conceptual and theoretical foundations of economics and thereby to...

This article traces a normative turn between the middle of the 1940s and the early 1950s reflected in the reformulation, interpretation, and use of rational choice theories at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. This turn is paralleled by a transition from Jacob Marschak's to...

Individual choices are often inconsistent with economic theories, which has motivated a variety of ways to measure how far choices are from a given theory. Recent work has investigated the correlation between measures of rationality and observable information such as education or income. This...

The theories of quality based on the assumption of rational economic man are examined. The fundamental assumptions on consumer preferences and supply are shown to be counter to observed reality in virtually all instances, and not to be in any sense simplifications of reality. The fundamental...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the normative interpretation of the fast-and-frugal research program and in particular to contrast it with the normative reading of rational choice theory and behavioral economics. The ecological rationality of fast-and-frugal heuristics is admittedly a...

The rapid pace of technological change challenges assumptions concerning the economic “long-run”. Consequentially, it disrupts the optimal psychological balance of emotion, reason, intuition and faith in our decision making. This is described in terms of the microeconomic conception of...