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People are intuitive economists under the right conditions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2018

Alan Jern
Alan Jern*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN 47803. jern@rose-hulman.eduhttps://wordpress.rose-hulman.edu/jern/
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Abstract

Boyer & Petersen (B&P) argue that a “rudimentary exchange psychology” is responsible for many of people's folk-economic beliefs that are at odds with the consensus views of economists. However, they focus primarily on macroeconomic beliefs. I argue that the same rudimentary exchange psychology could be expected to produce fairly accurate microeconomic intuitions. Existing evidence supports this prediction.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e171
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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