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Full-Text Articles in Economic Theory
Reflexivity In Financial Markets: A Neuroeconomic Examination Of Uncertainty And Cognition In Financial Markets, Steven Pikelny
Reflexivity In Financial Markets: A Neuroeconomic Examination Of Uncertainty And Cognition In Financial Markets, Steven Pikelny
Senior Projects Spring 2011
Financial markets exist to disperse the risks of an unknown future in an economy. But for this process to work in an optimal fashion, investors – and subsequently markets – must have a way to interpret uncertainty. The investor rationality and market efficiency literature utilizes a methodology inadequate to address this fact, so I supplement it with the perspectives of epistemology, economic sociology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. This approach suggests that what is commonly viewed as market “inefficiency” is not necessarily caused by investor irrationality, but rather by the inherent nature of the epistemological problem faced by …
Renewed Perspectives In Business Cycle Theory: An Analysis Of Three Heterodox Approaches, Sophia Burress
Renewed Perspectives In Business Cycle Theory: An Analysis Of Three Heterodox Approaches, Sophia Burress
Senior Projects Spring 2011
Since the collapse of the housing market in 2007-2008, economists have been faltering to provide basic answers to why and how it happened. Turning back to the history of economic thought, this project examines three models of business cycles: the Austrian business cycle theory, Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis, and the geoclassical cycle theory. Hypothesizing that mainstream economics has rendered its models irrelevant by abstracting from important concepts such as time and uncertainty, I propose that economics does not need to reinvent itself, but rather revisit its past. Using both logic and historical evidence to evaluate the three theories, I …