The dangers of excessive ambitions within the social sciences - Jon Elster

www.iffs.se
Part 1: In this lecture Jon Elster diagnoses this flaw and discusses possible remedies. He argues that actual agents are intrinsically less sophisticated than the models assume them to be, and that the various proposals to sustain the models by appealing to "as-if rationality" all fail. He considers behavioral economics as an alternative to the standard models, claiming that while behavioral economics may allow for successful retrodiction, it does not hold out much promise for prediction. Finally, he offers some speculations to explain the persistence in the economic profession and elsewhere of these useless or harmful models.
The lecture will be followed by comments from:
Tore Ellingsen, Professor of Economics at the Stockholm School
of Economics
Bengt Hansson, Professor of Philosophy at Lund University

[@andrewevans750]

thank you for this lecture. 'there is no reason to believe that the social aggregate is symetrically distributed around the correct answer.' well said.

[@VladimirTheAesthete]

Interesting lecture.