[743] Of economics, preference and rationality
March 4th, 2006 by Hafiz Noor Shams
I was about to blog something about microeconomics (tag) but ended up emailing my undergrad economics professor instead. Meanwhile, I dug up a pile of shit and found this written in one of my economics coursepacks:
It was taken from the coursepack itself. The full version is this – “Remember, economics defines rationality in terms of whether an individual acts sensibly given his or her preferences, not whether the preferences themselves are sensible.”
How true. That’s positive economics.
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Thank you for sparing us from your drawings…. i think your prof’s handwriting is more pleasing to the eye ANYTIME!!!
that’s my handwriting. LOL!
ah yes… i recognise that horrible hand writing… i waste so much time trying to figure out wat nonsense you were trying to write on your assignment. MUAHAHAHAH
Given, I must add, “the assumption of fixed preference” (see, e.g., Stigler & Becker, 1977, Amer. Econ. Rev., 67: 76-90), which is of course a simplifying assumption to ease neoclassical economic modelling (preferences and tastes, in reality, change, or may not even be formed yet for good with which “consumers” are unfamiliar) (e.g., Norton et al., 1998, Ecol. Econ., 24: 193-211).