At 10:38 AM 10/8/2002 -0500, Stephen H Karlson wrote:
>Let me weigh in with a short observation. Economics, ultimately, is about
>people acting in what they perceive to be their best interests, and
>responding to incentives to cooperate by trading for mutual gain.
Really? So economics has nothing to say about charity,
reciprocity, sympathy, etc? Strange. There have been many papers in leading
journals in recent years making it incontrovertibly clear that you cannot
explain economic behavior (e.g., bargaining, contributions to teams) in
terms of self-regarding behavior.
Herb
Herbert Gintis
Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts
External Faculty, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM
15 Forbes Avenue, Northampton, MA 01060 413-586-7756
Recent papers are posted on my <http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~gintis>web site.
Get Game Theory Evolving (Princeton, 2000) at
<http://www.isbn.nu/0691009430/amazon>Amazon.com.
Quote of the week:
Cultures do not exist as simply static "differences" to be
celebrated but compete with one another as better and
worse ways of getting things done - better and worse,
not from the standpoint of some observer, but from the
standpoint of the peoples themselves, as they cope and
aspire amid the gritty realities of life.
Thomas
Sowell
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