The fundamental difficulty in basing macroeconomic policy on microeconomic theory

Elba Brown-Collier

Forum for Social Economics, 1996, vol. 26, issue 1, 47-55

Abstract: Microeconomic theory is the theory of individual choice. For macroeconomic problems to be analyzed and solutions proposed with microeconomic theory, such problems must be capable of being defined in individualistic terms. It is argued that individuals can never perceive truly social problems requiring collective action in a manner consistent with the requirements of microeconomic theory. Even reformulating microeconomic theory to allow for interpersonal comparisons of utility, individuals may not be able to perceive the nature of social concerns in a manner necessary to support individually motivated actions bringing forth a solution.

Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF02778865 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:fosoec:v:26:y:1996:i:1:p:47-55

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RFSE20

DOI: 10.1007/BF02778865

Access Statistics for this article

Forum for Social Economics is currently edited by William Milberg, Dr Wolfram Elsner, Philip O'Hara, Cecilia Winters and Paolo Ramazzotti

More articles in Forum for Social Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().