Bayesian rationality is the paradigm of rational behavior in neoclassical economics. A rational agent in an economic model is one who maximizes her subjective expected utility and consistently revises her beliefs according to Bayes’s rule. The paper raises the question of how, when and why...

In a 1966 article in the <em>American Economic Review</em>, Harvey Leibenstein introduced the concept of "X-efficiency": the gap between ideal allocative efficiency and actually existing efficiency. Leibenstein insisted that absent strong competitive pressure, firms are unlikely to use their resources...

In spite of the use of a utilitarian language in Rational Choice Theory, economists do not acknowledge any link to this current of moral philosophy, and have made great efforts to rid economics from its legacy. In this document we aim at assessing these efforts retracing their history from...

In the paper I bring to the attention of the economists and historians of economic thought the idea of economic dynamics that one can found in the first book by Morishima published in 1950 but totally overlooked. It has a great interest not only because there it appears for the first time the...

The paper is concerned with the economic theory of George Stigler. First part outlines the life of George Stigler. Second part examines his dissertation "Production and Distribution Theories" (1941). Third part discusses his textbook "The Theory of Price" (1946). Forth part is devoted to his...

This paper summarizes and highlights different methodological approaches to behavioural economics in the context of the conventional economic wisdom and the implications of these different methodological approaches for financial literacy, related institutional change, and public policy....

Paolo Sylos Labini’s Oligopoly Theory and Technical Progress (1957) is considered one of the major contributions to entry-prevention models, especially after Franco Modigliani’s famous formalization. Nonetheless, Modigliani neglected Sylos Labini’s major aim when reviewing his work (1958),...

In this paper we address the story of developments in general equilibrium theory (GET) in the USSR during the 1970s through the lens of a single biography. The Soviet advances in mathematical economics, only fragmentarily known in the West, give an occasion to reflect on the extension of the...

The emergence of transaction cost economics (TCE) in the early 1970s with Oliver Williamson’s successful reconciliation of the so called neoclassical approach with Herbert Simon’s organizational theory can be considered an important part of the first cognitive turn in economics. The...