|
Vicarious Problem-solving
Vicarious problem-solving is a rational actor approach developed by Thomas Schelling Thomas Crombie Schelling (April 14, 1921 – December 13, 2016) was an American economist and professor of foreign policy, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College .... In economic reasoning it is an educated common sense where one informally models the situation assuming agents ‘operate in a purposeful manner, aware of their values and alert to their opportunities’. Using this approach, the researcher figures out what an agent might do by imagining him or herself in the person's position, as best he or she understands that position, and decides what that person will likely do, given that person's aims, values, objectives and constraints. Vicarious problem solving has been criticised as a type of armchair theorising.http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/29/6/927.pdf References Economic methodology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rational Actor
A rational agent or rational being is a person or entity that always aims to perform optimal actions based on given premises and information. A rational agent can be anything that makes decisions, typically a person, firm, machine, or software. The concept of rational agents can be found in various disciplines such as artificial intelligence, cognitive science, decision theory, economics, ethics, game theory, and the study of practical reason. Economics In reference to economics, rational agent refers to hypothetical consumers and how they make decisions in a free market. This concept is one of the assumptions made in neoclassical economic theory. The concept of economic rationality arises from a tradition of marginal analysis used in neoclassical economics. The idea of a rational agent is important to the philosophy of utilitarianism, as detailed by philosopher Jeremy Bentham's theory of the felicific calculus, also known as the hedonistic calculus. The action a rational age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Schelling
Thomas Crombie Schelling (April 14, 1921 – December 13, 2016) was an American economist and professor of foreign policy, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College Park. He was also co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He was awarded the 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with Robert Aumann) for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis." Biography Early years Schelling was born on April 14, 1921 in Oakland, California. Schelling graduated from San Diego High. He received his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1944. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1951. Career Schelling served with the Marshall Plan in Europe, the White House, and the Executive Office of the President from 1948 to 1953. He wrote most of his dissertation on national income ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armchair Theorising
Armchair theorizing, armchair philosophizing, or armchair scholarship is an approach to providing new developments in a field that does not involve primary research and the collection of new information – but instead analysis or synthesis of existent scholarship, and the term is typically pejorative, implying such scholarship is weak or frivolous. Commentary and analysis Different disciplines place different weights on purely theoretical research. Some anthropologists argue that purely theoretical anthropological research is outdated and that ethnographic fieldwork should be a necessary part of anthropological research. On the other hand, some commentators argue that economic theories are designed to explain and predict economic phenomena, which requires analysis and synthesis, and not necessarily collection, of data. Leland B. Yeager even argues that economists can legitimately extrapolate from their own personal observations to design new theories. In this sense, Yeager s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |