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Showing posts with the label Pareto efficiency

Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra

Market and Non-Market Streams of Thinking: Some Thoughts

  The economic theory and thinking revolves around two poles. One is often termed the economic right borrowing from the political conservatism and secondly the economic left borrowing from those subscribing to the Marxian line of thinking and related to the political left. However, these poles are not water-tight. There is of course however wide streams of thoughts that fall in varying shades of right and left. In fact economic thinking far from being a water-tight compartment operating in silos is actually a spectrum offering shelter to varying streams of thought. These streams of thought give rise to numerous possibilities in understanding human behaviour. Moreover, these streams of thinking offer insights to the complementarities and conflicts between the various modes of thought.   Those who subscribe to the spectrum of right wing economic thinking favour the primacy of the markets in allocation of resources. Those who advocate the left stream of thinking normally favour the pr