Economic Theorist's Book of Tales : Essays That Entertain the Consequences of New Assumptions in Economic Theory

by George A. Akerlof

• ISBN13: 9780521263238
• ISBN10: 0521263239
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1984-10-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book is a collection of essays exploring the consequences of making non-standard economic assumptions. It breaks with traditional economic theory, which relied upon a tacit and 'classical' set of assumptions that have gradually acquired a life of their own in terms of how economists write, think, and justify economic models. The essays cover a wide range of microeconomic and macroeconomic fields - from insurance markets and trade in underdeveloped countries to unemployment and discrimination. Some of the essays derive the implications of costly asymmetric information for economic markets. Others explore the findings of other social sciences including anthropology, psychology, and sociology.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. The market for 'lemons': quality uncertainty and the market mechanism

3. The economics of caste and of the rat race and other woeful tales

4. The economics of 'tagging' as applied to the optimal income tax, welfare programs, and manpower planning

5. A theory of social custom, of which unemployment may be one consequence

6. Jobs as dam sites

7. The economic consequences of cognitive dissonance with William T. Dickens

8. Labor contracts as partial gift exchange

9. Loyalty filters

Index.