Economic Man

Hargreaves Heap, Shaun P. (2008) Economic Man. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave.

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Abstract

Economic man ‘knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’, so said because he or she calculates and then acts so as to satisfy best his or her preferences. The value of these preferences is immaterial. The hypothesis has nevertheless proved remarkably powerful not only in economics but across the social sciences where it has spawned ‘rational choice’ accounts of many aspects of social life. This ambition has attracted critics both from without and within. The latter have developed, with insights from psychology on how people acquire and use information, a less elegant but arguably more realistic model.

Item Type: Book Section
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
Depositing User: Julia Sheldrake
Date Deposited: 18 Apr 2011 14:03
Last Modified: 12 Jan 2023 17:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/29553
DOI:

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