IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/iaecre/v22y2016i2d10.1007_s11294-016-9573-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Economics: Creating the Sustainable Rational Agent

Author

Listed:
  • Madhavi Venkatesan

    (Bridgewater State University)

Abstract

How are consumption decisions made? Does demand drive supply, does supply drive demand, or is it a mixture of both? Do consumption decisions implicitly include our values or are our decisions made with an assumption that what we are consuming has already factored in the long-term best interests of human health and environmental well-being? These basic questions are often unaddressed in the introductory study of economics. Instead, assumptions related to consumption and production behavior, demand, and supply are embedded as representative of consumer and producer behavioral norms, typically with minimal discussion. Could implicit assumptions promote observable behavior rather than be indicative of it? If so, could increasing awareness of the role of embedded values in demand and supply influence behaviors of consumers and producers and thereby alter economic outcomes? These questions were addressed as part of an introductory economics course case study. The purpose of the study was to raise awareness of the implications of individual purchasing decisions and to specifically initiate students in self-evaluation of their individual values and the values embedded in their individual consumption behavior. The results of the study promote the view that increasing awareness of the holistic impact of consumption behavior may be a significant catalyst to promoting sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Madhavi Venkatesan, 2016. "The Role of Economics: Creating the Sustainable Rational Agent," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 22(2), pages 187-197, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:iaecre:v:22:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s11294-016-9573-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11294-016-9573-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11294-016-9573-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11294-016-9573-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Janet T. Knoedler & Daniel A. Underwood, 2003. "Teaching the Principles of Economics: A Proposal for a Multi-paradigmatic Approach," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 697-725, September.
    2. Herman E. Daly, 2014. "From Uneconomic Growth to a Steady-State Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16030.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yang, David, 2018. "Has the arrival of Amazon altered the market structure for consumer electronic goods in Australia?," MPRA Paper 88153, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alfredo R.M. Rosete & Hendrik Van den Berg, 2019. "Macroeconomic Policy in an Environmentally-Constrained Economy: A Dialectical Materialist Application of the Harrod Growth Model," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 51(4), pages 544-552, December.
    2. Richard Heinberg & Timothy Crownshaw, 2018. "Energy Decline and Authoritarianism," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 1-11, September.
    3. Geoffrey Schneider, 2009. "Teaching Heterodox Economics: Introduction to the Special Issue," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 38(2), pages 91-96, July.
    4. Jorge Iván González, 2004. "La dicotomía micro-macro no es pertinente," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 6(11), pages 73-95, July-Dece.
    5. Klein, Alina F. & Klein, Rudolf F., 2023. "Principles of Economics, the Survivor Edition," Applied Economics Teaching Resources (AETR), Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 5(2), March.
    6. Kallis, Giorgos & Sager, Jalel, 2017. "Oil and the economy: A systematic review of the literature for ecological economists," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 561-571.
    7. Haydn Washington, 2021. "Questioning the Assumptions, Sustainability and Ethics of Endless Economic Growth," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-15, October.
    8. Hazan, Aurélien, 2019. "A maximum entropy network reconstruction of macroeconomic models," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 519(C), pages 1-17.
    9. C. Michael Hall & Kimberley J. Wood, 2021. "Demarketing Tourism for Sustainability: Degrowing Tourism or Moving the Deckchairs on the Titanic?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-15, February.
    10. Mishal J. Al-Thani & Muammer Koç, 2023. "In Search of Sustainable Economy Definition: A Qatari Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-15, June.
    11. Benjamin T. Phalan, 2018. "What Have We Learned from the Land Sparing-sharing Model?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-24, May.
    12. Jackson, Tim & Victor, Peter A., 2015. "Does credit create a ‘growth imperative’? A quasi-stationary economy with interest-bearing debt," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 32-48.
    13. Hensher, Martin & Canny, Ben & Zimitat, Craig & Campbell, Julie & Palmer, Andrew, 2020. "Health care, overconsumption and uneconomic growth: A conceptual framework," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    14. Christopher Magee, 2009. "Do Professors’ Opinions Affect Students?," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2-3), pages 135-151, January.
    15. Long, Xianling & Ji, Xi, 2019. "Economic Growth Quality, Environmental Sustainability, and Social Welfare in China - Provincial Assessment Based on Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 157-176.
    16. Mary O. Borg & Harriet A. Stranahan, 2010. "Evidence On The Relationship Between Economics And Critical Thinking Skills," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(1), pages 80-93, January.
    17. Chirag Dhara & Vandana Singh, 2021. "The Elephant in the Room: Why Transformative Education Must Address the Problem of Endless Exponential Economic Growth," Papers 2101.07467, arXiv.org.
    18. Tim Jackson & Peter Victor & Ali Asjad Naqvi, 2016. "Towards a Stock-Flow Consistent Ecological Macroeconomics. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 114," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 58788, April.
    19. Pinto Jorge, 2020. "Environmentalism, Ecologism, and Basic Income," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, June.
    20. Green, Tom L., 2013. "Teaching (un)sustainability? University sustainability commitments and student experiences of introductory economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 135-142.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:iaecre:v:22:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s11294-016-9573-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.