TY - JOUR
T1 - Economic complexities and cognitive hurdles
T2 - Accounting for specific economic misconceptions without an ultimate cause
AU - Leiser, David
AU - Shemesh, Yhonatan
PY - 2018/1/1
Y1 - 2018/1/1
N2 - Do folk-economic beliefs have an ultimate cause? We argue that, in many cases, the answer is negative. Cognition is constrained in both scope (via long-term memory [LTM]) and depth (via working memory [WM]). Consequently, laypeople are challenged by concepts essential for understanding complex systems, economics included: aggregation, indirect causation, and equilibrium. We discuss several economic misconceptions arising from this acute mismatch.
AB - Do folk-economic beliefs have an ultimate cause? We argue that, in many cases, the answer is negative. Cognition is constrained in both scope (via long-term memory [LTM]) and depth (via working memory [WM]). Consequently, laypeople are challenged by concepts essential for understanding complex systems, economics included: aggregation, indirect causation, and equilibrium. We discuss several economic misconceptions arising from this acute mismatch.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065771547&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0140525X18000420
DO - 10.1017/S0140525X18000420
M3 - Comment/debate
AN - SCOPUS:85065771547
SN - 0140-525X
VL - 41
SP - e176
JO - The Behavioral and brain sciences
JF - The Behavioral and brain sciences
ER -