Introduction

Jan Jonge

A chapter in Rethinking Rational Choice Theory, 2012, pp 3-6 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Robbins’ definition of economics in the 1930s as the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses paved the way for rational choice theory. Robbins defined economics not in terms of a domain, but in terms of an ever-present aspect of the human condition, namely: scarcity. Therefore, in all human activities rational people should try to use their means (resources) efficiently. Robbins merged the ordinary world and the economic world, rather than holding them apart. By doing that, he transformed economics into ‘a branch of practical reason’ (Meikle 2001, 53). ‘The extent of the change was dramatic, as it involves no less than the idea itself of what economics stands for: from the specific analysis of markets, prices and quantities to the general investigation of incentive-led behaviour in all situations of social interaction’ (Giocoli 2003, 345). ‘[T]oday economists can define their field more broadly, as being about the analysis of incentives in all social institutions’ (Myerson 1999, 1068).

Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1057/9780230355545_1

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