Revealed Preference in Decision-making: Some Conceptual Issues
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somdeb...@gmail.com
Dec 16, 2023, 12:29:02 PM12/16/23
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Sharing some thoughts with you. Will be benefitted if you provide me with feedback.
Best.
Somdeb.
somdeb...@gmail.com
Dec 21, 2023, 12:31:15 AM12/21/23
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The published version:
https://www.apricusjournals.com/index.php/ijoelp/article/view/158
Thanks and regards.
Thanks and regards.
Somdeb.
Ignacio Palacios-Huerta
Dec 21, 2023, 4:09:13 AM12/21/23
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Dear colleagues,
"Natural experiments, clean observability, precise measurement, high stakes, expert subjects, unimaginable detail, large datasets, exogenous rule changes, quasi-experimental variation, observable social effects, and no Hawthorne effects. These and other desirable attributes for empirical work are found in sports settings. In sports, lab and field features often complement each other. Sports can offer the best of both worlds. Reluctance to recognize these advantages reflects a misunderstanding of the virtues of sports data, and this reluctance has discouraged the study of these settings and slowed down the production of knowledge. This survey reviews a literature that shows how sports settings have made it possible to implement the first successful test, or the best test to date, of various models and hypotheses, and to discover new phenomena. It is not a question of what economics can do for sports, but what sports can do for economics."
True, the abstract has an empirical flavor. But if you have a look at the introduction, you will see the key role that new theories (new hypotheses based on new observed phenomena) have to advance economics, and how these settings can be very fruitful from this perspective. Leading figures stress that progress in economics requires not only the testing and elaboration of existing hypotheses but also the observation of new phenomena and the construction of new hypotheses.
Echoing the classic Friedman (1953) on methodology, Herbert Simon (1999) laments that we have almost ignored the process of discovery in the past few decades:
“Two interrelated components of scientific activity are commonly distinguished: the discovery of new phenomena and of hypotheses and laws to describe and explain these phenomena, and the verification (or, more often, falsification) of hypotheses or laws by observation and experiment. One is struck by the fact that we have been preoccupied almost exclusively during the past half-century with verification and falsification and have almost ignored the processes of discovery.” Economics “needs to return to the phenomenon-finding and hypothesis-finding component of science, not limiting itself to hypothesis-testing … You only need a setting that is likely to produce some new patterns, and you must watch for them.”
Best regards,
It would seem that a theory group as this one would probably not be the right group to receive an email with the subject "The Beautiful Dataset". However, I think there is a sense in which this is probably wrong. Let me explain.
I recently completed a thorough survey with that title, and one of the main goals is not empirical but theoretical. The survey was uploaded as a SSRN working paper a couple of days ago and is available here:
The Abstract is:
"Natural experiments, clean observability, precise measurement, high stakes, expert subjects, unimaginable detail, large datasets, exogenous rule changes, quasi-experimental variation, observable social effects, and no Hawthorne effects. These and other desirable attributes for empirical work are found in sports settings. In sports, lab and field features often complement each other. Sports can offer the best of both worlds. Reluctance to recognize these advantages reflects a misunderstanding of the virtues of sports data, and this reluctance has discouraged the study of these settings and slowed down the production of knowledge. This survey reviews a literature that shows how sports settings have made it possible to implement the first successful test, or the best test to date, of various models and hypotheses, and to discover new phenomena. It is not a question of what economics can do for sports, but what sports can do for economics."
Echoing the classic Friedman (1953) on methodology, Herbert Simon (1999) laments that we have almost ignored the process of discovery in the past few decades:
“Two interrelated components of scientific activity are commonly distinguished: the discovery of new phenomena and of hypotheses and laws to describe and explain these phenomena, and the verification (or, more often, falsification) of hypotheses or laws by observation and experiment. One is struck by the fact that we have been preoccupied almost exclusively during the past half-century with verification and falsification and have almost ignored the processes of discovery.” Economics “needs to return to the phenomenon-finding and hypothesis-finding component of science, not limiting itself to hypothesis-testing … You only need a setting that is likely to produce some new patterns, and you must watch for them.”
As Friedman (9153) puts it in his last paragraph: "The construction of hypotheses is a creative act of inspiration, intuition, invention; its essence is the vision of something new in familiar material."
I believe sports settings have great potential to inspire new theories. They have in the past and will continue to do so in the future, even though there is a strange prejudice or reluctance to recognize the virtues of these settings among many highbrows.
Best regards,
Ignacio
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