IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jecmet/v25y2018i2p179-209.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining patterns, not details: reevaluating rational choice models in light of their explananda

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine Herfeld

Abstract

It has been argued persistently that economic models frequently suffer from poor empirical performance because they rely upon empirically inadequate behavioral foundations, i.e. theories of rational choice. In this paper, I argue that much of this criticism misses the point: it assumes that economics is about explaining human behavior when in fact, since Adam Smith, economists have been more interested in explaining patterns that emerge from social interaction. While some minimal account of human behavior is needed for explaining such phenomena, a full-fledged psychological or neurobiological theory of individual behavior might not be. The more pressing yet under-researched challenge for economic models is to arrive at an adequate description of social interaction processes that connect individual choices on the micro-level and robust patterns on the macro-level.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine Herfeld, 2018. "Explaining patterns, not details: reevaluating rational choice models in light of their explananda," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 179-209, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:25:y:2018:i:2:p:179-209
    DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2018.1427882
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1350178X.2018.1427882
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/1350178X.2018.1427882?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.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Dold, Malte & Lewis, Paul, 2022. "F.A. Hayek on the political economy of endogenous preferences: An historical overview and contemporary assessment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 104-119.
    2. Moscati, Ivan, 2021. "On the recent philosophy of decision theory," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115039, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Marek Hudik, 2019. "Two interpretations of the rational choice theory and the relevance of behavioral critique," Rationality and Society, , vol. 31(4), pages 464-489, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:jecmet:v:25:y:2018:i:2:p:179-209. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJEC20 .

    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.