Theoretical Analysis of Economic Rationality

这个有趣的项目考察了经济分析的基本行为基础。关于购买消费品和服务，参与劳动力市场，以及在人和机构之间建立合同的经济学理论的基本概念是效用最大化。这就是说，人们做出了他们认为会给他们带来最大满足感的选择，这样他们就放弃了其他选择。这一看似老生常谈的道理是不言而喻的，同时也是深刻的。这种方法为许多重要问题提供了洞察力。例如，面对给定的工资率，人们会工作多少？他们会把收入的多大部分存起来？汽油税会对汽车的购买或行驶里程产生什么影响？显然，对于政策制定者、生产者、消费者和其他经济主体来说，这些都是重要的问题。然而，效用最大化的方法有时并不容易适用于观察到的人类行为。很多时候，人们的行为在观察者看来是不理性的。研究这种行为的经济学家和心理学家经常将其解释为人类无法有效地处理可获得的海量信息的结果。因此，他们隐含地得出了经验法则或其他捷径，允许相当快速的决策，但可能不会导致真正从长期来看给人最大满足感的选择。经济代理人彼此签订长期合同，即使在短期内，每个代理人通过独立行动可能会做得更好。这就是说，合同的每一方都可能有作弊的动机，特别是在作弊无法被发现的情况下。这个非常创新的项目探索了合同作弊的动机，签订合同的个人传达的信息类型，以及可能减少作弊动机的机制。弗兰克教授使用博弈论框架在各种有趣的背景下分析了所谓的囚徒困境。通过这种方式，他获得了对人类行为的信息处理机制的大量洞察，并最终了解了经济主体以理性方式行动的能力。

This interesting project examines the basic behavioral foundations of economic analysis. The fundamental concept underpinning economic theory regarding the purchase of consumer goods and services, participation in the labor market, and the establishment of contracts between people or institutions is the maximization of utility. That is to say, people make choices which they perceive will bring them the most satisfaction, and in doing so they forgo other choices. This seeming truism is both self-evident and profound at the same time. The approach has provided insights into many important questions. For instance, faced with a given wage rate, how much will people work? What fraction of their incomes will they save? What effect will a tax on gasoline have on the purchase of automobiles or on the number of miles driven. Clearly these are important questions to policy makers, producers, consumers, and other economic agents. The approach of utility maximization is, however, sometimes not readily applicable to observed human behavior. Many times people continue in behavior which to an observer appears irrational. Economists and psychologists who study such behavior often explain it as the result of human beings' inability to process effectively the ocean of information available to them. Thus they implicitly derive rules of thumb, or other shortcuts which allow for reasonably rapid decision making, but might not result in the choice which truly gives the most satisfaction over the long run. Economic agents enter into long term contracts with each other, even though in the short term each agent might be able to do better by acting independently. That is to say, each party to a contract might have the incentive to cheat, particularly if the cheating cannot be detected. This very innovative project explores the incentives to cheat on contracts, the types of information conveyed by individuals entering into contracts, and mechanisms which might diminish the incentive to cheat. Professor Frank uses a game theoretic framework to analyze the so- called prisoner's dilemma in a variety of interesting settings. In this manner he gains a great deal of insight into the information processing mechanisms of human behavior, and ultimately into the ability of economic agents to act in a rational manner.