Forests across the world stand at a crossroads where climate and land-use changes are shaping their future. Despite demonstrations of political will and global efforts, forest loss, fragmentation, and degradation continue unabated. No clear evidence exists to suggest that these initiatives are working. A key reason for this apparent ineffectiveness could lie in the failure to recognize the agency of all stakeholders involved. Landscapes do not happen. We shape them. Forest transitions are social and behavioral before they are ecological. Decision makers need to integrate better representations of people?s agency in their mental models. A possible pathway to overcome this barrier involves eliciting mental models behind policy decisions to allow better representation of human agency, changing perspectives to better understand divergent points of view, and refining strategies through explicit theories of change. Games can help decision makers in all of these tasks.
Ende der 1990er Jahre setzte ein zu diesem Zeitpunkt beispielloser Preisanstieg auf dem US-Eigenheimmarkt ein. Dessen dramatischer Einbruch im Jahre 2006 gilt als einer der Hauptgründe für die noch immer anhaltende Rezession der Weltwirtschaft. Obschon durch niedrige Zinssätze und Kreditvergabekonditionen begünstigt, liefert erst eine Betrachtung der epidemieartigen Ausbreitung von Optimismus über die zukünftige Marktentwicklung eine Erklärung für die Ausmaße dieser "Eigenheim-Blase". Das Verständnis solcher sozialen Herdenphänomene ist daher ökonomisch und sozialpolitisch von großer Bedeutung. Bestehende ökonomische Modelle zum "Sozialen Lernen" nehmen in diesem Bestreben eine zentrale Rolle ein. Diese Modelle zeigen, dass die schnelle Entwicklung von konformem Verhalten oft rational, gleichzeitig jedoch häufig ineffizient oder gar hochgradig schädlich ist. Allerdings sind nicht alle Schlussfolgerungen, welche sich aus den Modellen ergeben, plausibel. Die vorliegende Dissertation stellt daher die Eignung der Modelle zur Erklärung der Phänomene in Frage. Insbesondere werden die lernorientierten Grundlagen des angenommenen strategischen Verhaltens kritisch beleuchtet. Die Ergebnisse münden in der Entwicklung eines Alternativmodells, welches eher in der Lage ist, soziale Herden-phänomene zu erklären. Kapitel 1 ist den bestehenden klassischen Modellen sozialen Lernens gewidmet, welche vollkommene Rationalität und Bayes'sches Verhalten der Entscheider annehmen. Die Schwerpunktsetzung dieser Modelle auf Langfrist-Vorhersagen und den maximalen Informationsgehalt privater Informationen wird hinterfragt. Eine neue Perspektive mit Blick auf mittelfristige Vorhersagen und soziale Wohlfahrt und basierend auf neuen Definitionen u.a. von Konformität wird erarbeitet. Es wird gezeigt, dass höhere Wohlfahrt eng mit der langsameren Entwicklung konformen Verhaltens verknüpft ist. Das zentrale Kapitel 2 untersucht die lerntheoretischen Grundlagen der Modelle. Es steht damit in der ökonomischen Tradition, welche rationales Verhalten als Ergebnis von Anpassungsprozessen versteht. Eine solche dynamische Perspektive ermöglicht daher eine Antwort auf die Frage, ob und warum ein Gleichgewichtsmodell in der Lage ist, tatsächlich beobachtbares Verhalten zu erfassen. Insbesondere kann untersucht werden, welche Kenntnis der Entscheider über die Struktur der Entscheidungssituation vorausgesetzt werden kann. Die Ergebnisse werfen in dieser Hinsicht große Zweifel über die Annahmen bestehender Modelle auf. Genauer gesagt zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass die Vorhersagen der Modelle entscheidend durch eine als zu groß angenommene Kenntnis der Entscheider beeinflusst sind. Dies macht eine Neubewertung sowohl der theoretischen als auch der experimentellen Resultate notwendig. Kapitel 3 schließlich erweitert die bestehenden Modelle um die Präsenz von Individuen, welche Informationen nicht im Sinne von Bayes kombinieren. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Vorhersagen des derart erweiterten Modells besser mit dem in Experimenten beobachtbaren Verhalten übereinstimmen. Insbesondere liefert das erweiterte Modell im Gegensatz zu den bestehenden Modellen eine Erklärung für das wachsende Vertrauen von Individuen in die Richtigkeit des Herdenverhaltens und die daraus resultierende Stabilität desselbigen. ; Home prices in the United States experienced unprecedented growth beginning in the late 1990s, followed by a dramatic downturn in 2006 which caused a global economic recession. Though market fundamentals such as low interest rates and easy mortgage terms boosted housing prices, the full magnitude of the housing bubble can only be reconciled with a social epidemic of optimism for real estate. From a policy perspective, a solid understanding of the idea of social contagion is therefore desirable. Existing economic models of social learning have contributed to this understanding by showing that in many situations the decisions of rational individuals tend to converge quickly and the conformist outcome is often wrong. We argue in this dissertation, however, that some of the conclusions reached by the rational view of social learning are unsound which limits its capacity to explain social epidemics. A thorough investigation of the learning foundations of rational herding enables us to develop an alternative theoretical framework which holds greater promise for explaining social epidemics. Chapter 1 re-examines the classic model of Bayesian rational social learning most commonly investigated in the literature. Previous studies have mainly focused on the long-run properties of the equilibrium outcome in relation with the support of the private belief distribution. From a welfare perspective, this focus on the long-run learning outcome is misplaced. To address this concern, we introduce new measures of uniformity and fragility which enable us to discuss the medium-run properties of the equilibrium outcome. We find that less uniform investment decisions lead to higher welfare levels of the equilibrium outcome but lower fragility of rational herds. Chapter 2, the core of the thesis, investigates the learning foundations of economic models of social learning. We pursue the prevalent idea in economics that rational play is the outcome of a dynamic process of adaptation. Our learning approach offers us the possibility to clarify when and why equilibrium is likely to capture observed regularities in the field. Contrary to the eductive justification for equilibrium, a learning-theoretic model must address the issue of individual and interactive knowledge before the adaptive process starts. We argue that knowledge about the private belief distribution is unlikely to be shared in most social learning contexts. Absent this mutual knowledge, we show that the long-run outcome of the adaptive process favors non-Bayesian rational play. Chapter 3 introduces a simple extension to the rational model of social learning by assuming that players update their beliefs in a non-Bayesian way. We examine the properties of this generalized social learning model and show that it is able to capture the experimental regularities. Unlike standard models of rational social learning, our model predicts that as a herd evolves players tend to quickly become extremely confident about the appropriateness of the chosen action which is why the fragility of the social learning process vanishes over time. Both regularities seem to prevail in social epidemics.
We study how the use of judgement or "add-factors" in macroeconomic forecasting may disturb the set of equilibrium outcomes when agents learn using recursive methods. We isolate conditions under which new phenomena, which we call exuberance equilibria, can exist in standard macroeconomic environments. Examples include a simple asset pricing model and the New Keynesian monetary policy framework. Inclusion of judgement in forecasts can lead to self-fulfilling fluctuations, but without the requirement that the underlying rational expectations equilibrium is locally indeterminate. We suggest ways in which policymakers might avoid unintended outcomes by adjusting policy to minimize the risk of exuberance equilibria.
Decisión theory has become an indispensable tool in economics, psychology, political science, sociology and philosophy. However, in spite of its pervasive influence, it is not yet well known among social scientist. In this paper, I present the basics of decisión theory first of all. Then, after explaining the use of some decisión criteria under uncertainty, I discuss the normative properties and the limits of the subjetive expected utility theory (SEU). The limits of SEU models lead US to explore ntw approaches in decisión theory based on Herbert Simon's concept of bounded rationality, such as adaptive decision-maker models and the theory of ecological rationality. ; Peer reviewed
Forty years ago, Herbert Simon reminded public managers of the limits of rationality, or the bounded rationality, of the individual decision maker. New analytical techniques from the sciences of complexity now provide a means to measure the complexity in the environment of public managers using actual organizational data. Time series analysis is used to examine data from the external environment of two urban police divisions. Results of the analysis reveal that the complexities of the environment of public organizations may serve as an inhibition to rational decision making that extends beyond the limits of the individual proposed by Simon.
Foreign divestment (FD) decisions are not purely based on the profitability of a business but also on a company's investing and divesting experience and the degree of uncertainty in markets. The FD procedure is grounded by the level of uncertainty, experience in divesting, and experience in investing. Both internal and external factors are catalysts for the firms' foreign divestments. The constructs of real options theory, prospect theory and the theory of bounded rationality are three key moderators in the firms' FD decision‐making.
Attention is called to a little explored scarce resource, termed 'economic competence', which combines features of human capital and bounded rationality, and causes a singularity in resource-allocation in society. The performance of each economy is shown to strongly depend on how this resource is allocated, which in turn strongly depends upon the economy's institutions ('rules of the game'). Two stylized institutional variants of market selection and one of government selection are compared for their short-term and long-term effects upon the output and growth of a perfect team economy. The results are exemplified by throwing new light on the social value of financial markets and the limitations of industrial policies.
pt. 1. Micro foundations : from bounded to epistemic rationality -- pt. 2. Contracts and the firm beyond transactions : the governance of knowledge and association -- pt. 3. Organization design beyond comparative assessment : the discovery of forms, and forms for discovery.
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This paper develops several epistemological aspects of the standard Rational Choice Theory (hereafter RCT). The introduction presents some essential criteria of the RCT in a social and scientific context, where the RCT stands on an artificial formalization to support its validity. Then, the core elements of the RCT are briefly outlined. Subsequently, a historical perspective of the Western scientific tradition is given, in which the RCT locates, linking deeply to the idealist and rationalist epistemology. A critical review of the bounded rationality opposed to the TER and some elements of study in psychology applied to economics that contradict the assumptions of substantive rationality are also included. Finally, a review is made on the ambition of the RCT to be separated from any ethics, given his presumption of scientificity, turning herself into a powerful ethos in the field of economics, and hence, of politics. ; El presente trabajo desarrolla varios aspectos epistemológicos de la Teoría de la Elección Racional (TER). Se da una perspectiva histórica de la tradición científica occidental en la cual se inscribe la misma, ligándose profundamente a la epistemología idealista y racionalista. Se incluye también un repaso a la revisión crítica de la "racionalidad limitada" opuesta a la TER y de algunos elementos de estudios en psicología aplicados a la economía que contradicen los supuestos de la racionalidad sustantiva. Por último, se hace un repaso de la pretensión de la TER de separarse de cualquier ética, dada su presunción de cientificidad, convirtiéndose, ella misma, en un poderoso ethos en el ámbito de la economía y, por consiguiente, en el político.
Economics, dealing with mental processes of decision makers is part of cognitive science; conversely, cognitive science, faced with constraints on information processing, is part of economics. In July 1990, the Cecoia 2 conference was organised in Paris to further explore the connections between the two. The papers presented in this volume illustrate this truly interdisciplinary research intertwining social and cognitive sciences. Three main topics are represented: agent's mental representation when facing complex uncertainty; agent's computational constraints leading to bounded rationality; agent's learning and evolution in an imperfectly known environment.
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It is argued that mainstream economics, with its present methodological approach, is limited in its ability to analyze and develop adequate public policy to deal with current environmental problems and sustainable development. This book provides an alternative approach. Building on the strengths and insights of Post Keynesian and ecological economics and incorporating cutting edge work in such areas as economic complexity, bounded rationality and socio-economic dynamics, the contributors to this book provide a trans-disciplinary approach to deal with a broad range of environmental concerns
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Although improvisation stands outside of conventional models for rational policy making and Weberian administration, it is nonetheless prevalent in public life. This article argues that improvisation is both a natural consequence of bounded rationality as well as a product of cultural and personal predilections and environmental circumstances. Drawing on a number of instances of improvisation in public administration and policy making in Israel, it attempts to shed light on its uses, motives, and implications, as well as on the issues involved in considering its utility.
