Rethinking basically Economic Assumption on Individual Behavior from Empirical Viewpoints of Evolution and Behavior

Zhao, Liang (2008): Rethinking basically Economic Assumption on Individual Behavior from Empirical Viewpoints of Evolution and Behavior.

Abstract

Building on the predecessors' thoughts and modern researches from empirical disciplines, and with thinking over the behavior assumption usually held and used by mainstream economics, the paper generalizes three basic assumptions and one explanatory framework on human individual behavior and its process, and stresses hierarchical characteristics in preferences, heterogeneity between learning capacity and learning and, human dealing with and reducing uncertainty from environments in the process of natural evolution, and rethinks the questions of individual rationality, acquirement of behavior mode, intellectual history on "knowledge" in the level of experientialism. The purpose is that along the path of "falsifying a theory" and with the help of empirical results, the paper trys to propose behavioral presuppositions and thinking framework, so that enhancing the effectiveness of economic theory on explaining individual behavior in real situations, and in the end advancing transdisciplinary researches between the empirical and social sciences.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: assumption, explanatory framework, individual behavior, hierarchical preference, learning capacity, knowledge, evolutionary process, empirical substrate, transdiscipline
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B2 - History of Economic Thought since 1925 > B21 - Microeconomics; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B3 - History of Economic Thought: Individuals > B31 - Individuals; A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A12 - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B59 - Other; Y - Miscellaneous Categories > Y8 - Related Disciplines > Y80 - Related Disciplines; D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D01 - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles

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