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Isn’t all this the same thing that Simon got a Nobel for in 1978? (And Kahneman in 2002.) Why does economics keep rediscovering that people’s thinking is compli

Isn’t all this the same thing that Simon got a Nobel for in 1978? (And Kahneman in 2002.) Why does economics keep rediscovering that people’s thinking is complicated, and thinking its a new discovery?

KingMob 9y ago
It's because very few of them listened to, or believed in, their psychologist colleagues. And given how difficult it is to conduct experiments at the macroeconomic level, the field as a whole has a poor tradition of running experiments and collecting evidence, which would have burst that bubble decades earlier.
vonmoltke 9y ago
> Isn’t all this the same thing that Simon got a Nobel for in 1978? My understanding is, no. Simon's work dealt with microeconomic decisions, which is exactly what Thaler said many were dismissing as self-cancelling noise at the macro level. Kahneman's demonstrates it does not, at least for a subset of macro decisions.
matt4077 9y ago
Because "it's complicated" isn't usually considered an exhaustive exploration of the topic? It's also a great symbol, emphasising how economics is trying to incorporate new knowledge of all the "failure modes" of classical models. There are enough people retelling that "square chicken" joke over and over, and such prices help to spread the word that, contrary to public opinion, there are lots of efforts to make the models match closer with behavioural realities.
- abrax3141 9y ago
  > Because "it's complicated" isn't > usually considered an exhaustive exploration > of the topic? Okay, fair point. Maybe what tweaks me is the media always reporting just what the Nobel committee says, which is just the same gloss as S&K: cognition matters. In physics they don’t keep saying the same thing about each Nobel’s contribution. Maybe it’s just that physics is easy, and cognitive science is hard.
ghaff 9y ago
Simon was more about decision-making in organizations. But Kahneman certainly did a lot of work in psychology that helped form the basis for behavioral economics work.
- abrax3141 9y ago
  Funny to think of Simon, who is credited with being the grandfather of cognitive science, as being known for organizational behavior.

KingMob 9y ago

It's because very few of them listened to, or believed in, their psychologist colleagues. And given how difficult it is to conduct experiments at the macroeconomic level, the field as a whole has a poor tradition of running experiments and collecting evidence, which would have burst that bubble decades earlier.

vonmoltke 9y ago

> Isn’t all this the same thing that Simon got a Nobel for in 1978? My understanding is, no. Simon's work dealt with microeconomic decisions, which is exactly what Thaler said many were dismissing as self-cancelling noise at the macro level. Kahneman's demonstrates it does not, at least for a subset of macro decisions.

matt4077 9y ago

Because "it's complicated" isn't usually considered an exhaustive exploration of the topic? It's also a great symbol, emphasising how economics is trying to incorporate new knowledge of all the "failure modes" of classical models. There are enough people retelling that "square chicken" joke over and over, and such prices help to spread the word that, contrary to public opinion, there are lots of efforts to make the models match closer with behavioural realities.

abrax3141 9y ago
> Because "it's complicated" isn't > usually considered an exhaustive exploration > of the topic? Okay, fair point. Maybe what tweaks me is the media always reporting just what the Nobel committee says, which is just the same gloss as S&K: cognition matters. In physics they don’t keep saying the same thing about each Nobel’s contribution. Maybe it’s just that physics is easy, and cognitive science is hard.

ghaff 9y ago

Simon was more about decision-making in organizations. But Kahneman certainly did a lot of work in psychology that helped form the basis for behavioral economics work.

abrax3141 9y ago
Funny to think of Simon, who is credited with being the grandfather of cognitive science, as being known for organizational behavior.