IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/att/wimass/9707.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Formal Model of Theory Vhoice in Science

Author

Listed:
  • Brock, W.A.
  • Durlauf, S.N.

Abstract

Since the classic work of Feyerabend and Kuhn, the role of social factors in the scientific enterprise has been a major concern in the philosophy and history of science. In particular, the presence of social factors such as the desire for prestige or pressures to conform to accepted ideas, have been regarded as reasons to question whether science naturally progresses towards more and more accurate approximations of reality. In this paper, we propose a formal model of theory choice which incorporates private and social influences. We provide a characterization of the interaction of social factors with theory choice. Our results demonstrate that the influence of social factors on scientific progress is far more complex than is typically assumed. In particular, we provide conditions under which social influences actually enhance the rate at which a superior theory replaces its inferior predecessor.

Suggested Citation

  • Brock, W.A. & Durlauf, S.N., 1997. "A Formal Model of Theory Vhoice in Science," Working papers 9707, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    • Handle: RePEc:att:wimass:9707
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/econ/archive/wp9707.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blume Lawrence E., 1993. "The Statistical Mechanics of Strategic Interaction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 387-424, July.
    2. Brock, W.A. & Durlauf, S.N., 1995. "Discrete Choice with Social Interactions I: Theory," Working papers 9521, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    3. ANDERSON, Simon P. & de PALMA, André & THISSE, Jacques-François, 1992. "Interpretations of the logit discrete choice models and the theory of product differentiation," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1017, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steven N. Durlauf, 1996. "Statistical Mechanics Approaches to Socioeconomic Behavior," NBER Technical Working Papers 0203, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Durlauf, S.N., 1997. "Rational Choice and the Study of Science," Working papers 9709r, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    3. V. M. Darley & S. A. Kauffman, 1996. "Natural Rationality," Working Papers 96-08-071, Santa Fe Institute.
    4. Thomas Norman, "undated". "Step-by-Step Evolution with State-Dependent Mutations," Economics Papers 2003-W08, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    5. Steven N. Durlauf, 1997. "The Memberships Theory of Inequality: Ideas and Implications," Research in Economics 97-05-047e, Santa Fe Institute.
    6. Randal J. Verbrugge, 1998. "Local Complementarities and Aggregate Fluctuations," Macroeconomics 9809016, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Sep 1998.
    7. Susan Lee, 1999. "Assortative Interactions and Endogenous Stratification," Working Papers 99-08-056, Santa Fe Institute.
    8. Denis Phan & Stephane Pajot & Jean-Pierre Nadal, 2003. "The Monopolist's Market with Discrete Choices and Network Externality Revisited: Small-Worlds, Phase Transition and Avalanches in an ACE Framework," Computing in Economics and Finance 2003 150, Society for Computational Economics.
    9. Falk Armin & Kosfeld Michael, 2012. "It's all about Connections: Evidence on Network Formation," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-36, September.
    10. Simon P. Anderson & André de Palma, 2012. "Competition for attention in the Information (overload) Age," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 1-25, March.
    11. Szabó, György & Borsos, István & Szombati, Edit, 2019. "Games, graphs and Kirchhoff laws," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 521(C), pages 416-423.
    12. Stennek, Johan & Tangerås, Thomas, 2006. "Competition vs. Regulation in Mobile Telecommunications," Working Paper Series 685, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    13. Michael Kosfeld, 2002. "Stochastic strategy adjustment in coordination games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 20(2), pages 321-339.
    14. Steven N. Durlauf & Yannis M. Ioannides, 2010. "Social Interactions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 451-478, September.
    15. Ariu, Andrea & Breinlich, Holger & Corcos, Gregory & Mion, Giordano, 2019. "The interconnections between services and goods trade at the firm-level," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 173-188.
    16. Sanjeev Goyal & Fernando Vega-Redondo, 2000. "Learning, Network Formation and Coordination," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0113, Econometric Society.
    17. Pierre Picard & Takatoshi Tabuchi, 2010. "Self-organized agglomerations and transport costs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 42(3), pages 565-589, March.
    18. Christian Hilbe & Moshe Hoffman & Martin A. Nowak, 2015. "Cooperate without Looking in a Non-Repeated Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-15, September.
    19. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2007:i:19:p:1-8 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Zhang, Boyu & Hofbauer, Josef, 2016. "Quantal response methods for equilibrium selection in 2×2 coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 19-31.
    21. Jun Honda, 2015. "Games with the Total Bandwagon Property," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp197, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    DECISION MAKING ; CHOICE;

    JEL classification:

    • B20 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - General
    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School

    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:att:wimass:9707. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Ailsenne Sumwalt (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.