Learning in Economics: Where Do We Stand?

This paper briefly reviews the current literature on learning in economics from a behavioral point of view. It critically compares theory with aspects of learning in real-life and with evidence from laboratory experiments, and argues that most customary approaches lack criteria for their applicability. Hence, there is a need for a theory that includes criteria when to employ which theory or which element(s) of existing theories contingent on the situation or environment in question. A discussion of several unsolved issues in economic learning stresses the fundamental role of learning conditions that have be neglected in the literature, but are accounted for in behavioral approaches such as "contingent learning".