Gabriel Overcriticizes Oversellers
I have to take issue with Gabriel’s criticism here. My comments below:
No Respect for Oversellers
I have no respect for people who grossly oversell their research. Take, for example, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Economic policy for humans
In the past 20 years, there has been a growing interest in cutting-edge research that has come to be called “behavioral economics.” In behavioral economics, the robot-like creatures who populate standard economic theories are replaced with real human beings.
OK, so they have discovered the Real Human Being Model ™, the Noumenal Human Being. Good for them. Now we can close down all universities and go home because Thaler and Sunstein discovered the Thing-in-Itself.
And, to think of it, what’s so “cutting-edge” about this research? Surveys and masturbating over a laptop questionnaire?
The quote (emphasis added by Gabriel) is in fact extremely accurate. Indeed, it is literally true. Traditional economic theory programs simplistic to less-than-simple models of human economic behavior and analyzes the output. The models are ultimately programs, aka robotic. Empirics are almost always averaged out over large groups and checked to see how well they align with the models. Behavioral economics maintains a focus on individual human behavior. I think that is an entirely fair characterization of the research field without making broad claims to have solved everything. Psychology does the same type of thing, yet it does not make claims to have solved human behavior either.
Of course, Cass and Richard go further in their Op-Ed and point out several recent failures of economic policy informed by ‘traditional economics’ and that a behaviorist may have come to different conclusions and policy recommendations (with some examples), though I don’t think it requires such a full research program to come to such conclusions.
As to what defines cutting edge research in the social sciences, I have no idea. New, relatively successful with lots of future promise yet still not mainstream? Even if that is a good description, I don’t know if behavioral economics fits.
Also, I haven’t managed to get my hands on Nudge, but I don’t see why libertarian paternalism is necessarily wedded to behavioral economics.
I have written on Nudge and libertarian paternalism several times before.
