The Homo Economicus Under Experimental Attack

Ekkehart Schlicht

Discussion Papers in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: For non-economists, it is often difficult to understand why economists place so much emphasis on the self-interest motive. It is obvious that people act out of a variety of motives - gratitude, anger, social obligation and many, many other motives. There are several reasons why economists still put the self-interest motive in the foreground. Three points of view seem particularly important: - homo economicus as a useful approximation - homo economicus as an ideal type - homo oeconomicus as as-if construction These justifications for the self-interest or homo-economicus assumption are briefly characterized.. It is explained why these justifications cannot be empirically disproved. Only their relevance can be questioned. Subsequently, the evolutionary point of view that underlies the as-if defense of homo economicus is radicalized and it is argued that it is appropriate to approach norm formation theoretically and experimentally from a psychological point of view.

Keywords: behavioral economics; rational choice; evolutionary economics; anomalies; bounded rationality; institutional economics; norm erosion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B13 B15 D01 D9 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/74501/1/Schlicht_homo_oeconomicus3.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lmu:muenec:74501

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics Ludwigstr. 28, 80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tamilla Benkelberg ().