Posts

Showing posts with the label utility maximization

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
Post a Comment
Read more

Romanticizing Poverty

-
There is morbid captivation to romanticize poverty, sentimentalise filth and squalor, put rural life on a pedestal, and idealize urban low income neighbourhoods and slums. To a Western tourist, watching from the stands if one can call it so, exhibition of poverty might be a spectacle however morose it might appear. It might not be dissimilar to their melancholic interests in viewing African Negroes brought as slaves and further parading as human travelling zoo.   To add, is the tendency of many Indian commentators not merely to self-flagellate but add a mystique to the business of public celebration of poverty. It would not be wrong to say the advocacy on poverty eradication are its biggest enemies. If poverty were to be zero, perhaps Mother Theresa would be without a job! Paradoxically for the perpetual existence of poverty alleviating organizations, poverty has to be everlasting. To people in poverty, living in over-crowded chawls or slums in cities, inhabiting rural places fa
Post a Comment
Read more