I used to have a lot of conversations with folks about Behavioral Econ.

in economics •  7 months ago 

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That's died down since so many of its key papers turned out to be crap.

But the one thing I always used to think (and say) about it was, "This all just seems like Mises or Hayek with extra steps that make it noticeably worse and less helpful".

Austrians already knew that people aren't "homo economicus" robots.

Goods and services produced in a market are not interchangeable abstractions. People respond to incentives. People act to satisfy their own unique (and uniquely contextual) values. Those values vary in type, urgency, and specificity constantly. Sometimes people's preferences come from "irrational" or at least emotional places... And that's fine.

All these things were concepts I already understood from reading Mises, Hayek, Menger, Coase, Buchanan, Tullock, etc.

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