From Theories of Human Behavior to Rules of Rational Choice: Tracing a Normative Turn at the Cowles Commission, 1943–54

Catherine Herfeld

History of Political Economy, 2018, vol. 50, issue 1, 1-48

Abstract: This article traces a normative turn between the middle of the 1940s and the early 1950s reflected in the reformulation, interpretation, and use of rational choice theories at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. This turn is paralleled by a transition from Jacob Marschak’s to Tjalling Koopmans’s research program. While rational choice theories initially raised high hopes that they would serve as empirical accounts to inform testable hypotheses about economic regularities, they became increasingly modified and interpreted as normative approaches offering behavioral recommendations for individual agents, organizations, government, and teams. The predefined elements constitutive of these accounts, inspired by simple rules of logic, were now meant to represent the basic demands of rationality and theories of rational decision making specified rules of conduct that were meant to shape rather than explain behavior.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-4334997 link to full text (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:hop:hopeec:v:50:y:2018:i:1:p:1-48

Access Statistics for this article

History of Political Economy is currently edited by Kevin D. Hoover

More articles in History of Political Economy from Duke University Press Duke University Press 905 W. Main Street, Suite 18B Durham, NC 27701.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Center for the History of Political Economy Webmaster ().