{"id":643,"date":"2011-01-28T18:03:16","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T18:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/?p=643"},"modified":"2011-01-28T18:05:53","modified_gmt":"2011-01-28T18:05:53","slug":"challenging-the-assumptions-of-conventional-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/2011\/01\/28\/challenging-the-assumptions-of-conventional-economics\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenging the assumptions of conventional economics"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_644\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/researchers\/james-andreoni-2\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-644\" class=\"size-full wp-image-644\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/files\/2011\/01\/Andreoni-new.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"140\" height=\"204\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-644\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Andreoni<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019m an economist who entertains a broad palette of possible tastes and motives in the people I study. Some of these tastes and motives come from psychological, some from sociology, some from linguistics, and some just from approaching the world with open eyes. When I was in graduate school in the mid1980s, the observation that people might behave generously toward others they were unrelated to them was considered a minor issue. Moreover, the orthodoxy of the times suggested that markets, competition, and other ideas of \u201crationality\u201d would quickly extinguish anything but narrow self-interest.<!--more--> To assume otherwise was, at the time, considered \u201cnon-standard economics.\u2019\u2019 Today this approach is given a more accommodating label: Behavioral Economics.<\/p>\n<p>As a student, I saw a paper in a major journal that used the logic of<br \/>\nnarrow self-interest to argue against government help for charities,<br \/>\nan argument I viewed as contradicting everything I saw about giving in<br \/>\nthe real world. In my first major publication in 1988 I used the<br \/>\northodoxy against itself. I showed that \u201cstandard economics,\u201d when<br \/>\napplied to charity and giving, led to absurd and inaccurate<br \/>\npredictions that were virtually irrelevant to the human experience.<br \/>\nThe economist\u2019s notion of self-interest, I argued, needed to be<br \/>\nbroadened to include unselfish behavior. I stated in the conclusion to<br \/>\nthat first publication that, \u201cPhenomena such as guilt, repentance,<br \/>\nenvy, sympathy, emulation, a taste for fairness, or a heuristic for<br \/>\nduty may develop naturally from a society of self-interested agents,<br \/>\nand institutions may emerge that provide \u2018selective incentives\u2019 for<br \/>\ngiving. Economic models that reflect these possibilities might<br \/>\nultimately help us understand both the failures and successes of<br \/>\nprivate giving.\u201d This quote has summarized my research agenda ever<br \/>\nsince.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m an economist who entertains a broad palette of possible tastes and motives in the people I study. Some of these tastes and motives come from psychological, some from sociology, some from linguistics, and some just from approaching the world &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/2011\/01\/28\/challenging-the-assumptions-of-conventional-economics\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5959],"tags":[13301,13300],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prosocial-behavior","tag-behavioral-economics","tag-self-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/science-of-generosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}