Michael Perelman wrote:
Because the choices studied by economists are a limited set of
choices.
For example, people choose as consumers, but workers have no choice
about working conditions except to exit.
But isn't that part of what needs to be assessed? What shapes
choice, is there choice, what happens if we change the frame that
determines what choices are available?
And the difference with psychology is, I suppose, that economists
treat psychology itself as a black box. In general, economists are
not concerned with why people make the choices they make, only what
choices they make and, in particular, how those choices change when
the framework within which they make those choices change (typically
just relative prices, but more properly the whole array of factors
that impinge on individual behavior/choice, like how property rights
are articulated, who has property rights, contract, torts,
perceptions of status, etc.)
Fred Carstensen
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