IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/igg/jabe00/v3y2014i2p35-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

B is for Bias: From Rational Maximizer to Homo Heuristicus

Author

Listed:
  • Calin Valsan

    (Williams School of Business, Bishop's University, Lennoxville, Canada)

Abstract

Standard economic theory assumes rational agents. Individuals are expected to have rational expectations and constantly optimize their choices. Modern economic and financial theory is build under the assumption of rationality. There is plenty of evidence from psychology, however, that individuals are biased and rely heavily on heuristics in order to make decisions. Yet, this is not a mere fluke, a behavioral oddity. Because the social and economic environment in which individuals evolve is complex, behavioral biases represent evolutionary adaptations allowing economic agents to deal with undecidability and computational irreducibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Calin Valsan, 2014. "B is for Bias: From Rational Maximizer to Homo Heuristicus," International Journal of Applied Behavioral Economics (IJABE), IGI Global, vol. 3(2), pages 35-47, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:igg:jabe00:v:3:y:2014:i:2:p:35-47
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://services.igi-global.com/resolvedoi/resolve.aspx?doi=10.4018/ijabe.2014040103
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:igg:jabe00:v:3:y:2014:i:2:p:35-47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journal Editor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.igi-global.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.