Complexity Theory, Game Theory, and Economics: The Barbados Lectures

This paper investigates whether since the 1980s neoclassical economics has been in the process of being supplanted as the dominant research programme in economics by a collection of competing research approaches which share relatively little in common with each other or with neoclassical economics. A shortlist of the new approaches in recent economics includes game theory, experimental economics, behavioral economics, evolutionary economics, neuroeconomics, and non-linear complexity theory. Two hypotheses are advanced – one regarding the relation between economics instruction and economics research and one regarding the nature of the economics research frontier – to describe social-institutional practices that contribute to the replication of economics as a field. Two further hypotheses are advanced – one regarding the boundaries of the field and one regarding how the field appraises itself – to create a historical–methodological framework for evaluating the question of change in economics and change in recent economics in particular. Finally, the paper distinguishes three leading explanations – the ‘breakdown’ view, the ‘takeover’ view, and the ‘maturity’ view – of why neoclassical economics no longer dominates a mainstream economics.

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The Unification of the Behavioral Sciences

The Bounds of Reason ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691160849.003.0011 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

Herbert Gintis

Keyword(s):

Game Theory ◽

Decision Making ◽

Complexity Theory ◽

Strategic Interaction ◽

Journal Articles ◽

Behavioral Sciences ◽

Unified Framework ◽

Actor Model ◽

Graduate Curriculum ◽

Rational Actor

The behavioral sciences include economics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and political science, as well as biology insofar as it deals with animal and human behavior. These disciplines have distinct research foci, but they include four conflicting models of decision making and strategic interaction, as determined by what is taught in the graduate curriculum and what is accepted in journal articles without reviewer objection. The four are the psychological, the sociological, the biological, and the economic. These four models are not only different, but are also incompatible. That is, each makes assertions concerning choice behavior that are denied by the others. This means, of course, that at least three of the four are certainly incorrect. This chapter argues that in fact all four are flawed but can be modified to produce a unified framework for modeling choice and strategic interaction for all of the behavioral sciences. The framework for unification includes five conceptual units: (a) gene-culture coevolution; (b) the sociopsychological theory of norms; (c) game theory, (d) the rational actor model; and (e) complexity theory.

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