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Amos Tversky and the ascent of behavioral economics. (English) Zbl 0911.90006

Summary: Tversky investigated and explained a wide range of phenomena that lead to anomalous human decisions. His two most significant contributions, both written with D. Kahneman, are the decision-making heuristics – representativeness, availability, and anchoring – and prospect theory. Tversky’s concepts have broadly influenced the social sciences. In economics, they gave rise to the burgeoning field of behavioral economics. This field, skeptical of perfect rationality; emphasizes validation of modeling assumptions, integration of micro-level data on decisions (including experimental evidence), and adoption of lessons from psychology. Tversky’s contributions are reviewed, assessed using citation analysis, and placed in historical context. Fertile areas for behavioral economics research are identified.

MSC:

91B06 Decision theory
90-03 History of operations research and mathematical programming
01A70 Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies

Biographic References:

Tversky, Amos
Full Text: DOI