Description
Book SynopsisThe purpose of this book is to publish the ideas of the late Herbert Simon and sympathetic economists, on the subject of bounded rationality, economics, cognitive science and related disciplines, and to reprint some of Professor Simon’s classic papers which have appeared in journals not widely read by economists.
Not only on account of his Nobel Prize in Economics, but also because of the widespread applications of his ideas and theories, it is especially valuable to readers to have a book of this kind at the present time. Currently in this whole field, there is increasing emphasis on computer-related theory building. Herbert Simon, beginning from the time when microcomputers did not exist, was a pioneer of this approach.
The book begins with an edited transcript of a colloquium, held between Herbert Simon and a group of Italian economists in Italy in 1988. It continues with the reprinted Simon papers and papers by three scholars, Raymond Boudon, Massimo Egidi and Riccardo Viale coming from different disciplines but holding a common interest in bounded rationality and ends with a response by a sympathetic economist, Robin Marris.
Table of ContentsContents: Introduction Part I: Bounded Rationality: Discussion 1. Introductory Comment 2. Colloquium with H.A. Simon Part II: Herbert Simon Reprints 3. Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment (1956) 4. Thinking by Computers (1966) 5. Information Processing in Computer and Man (1964) 6. Scientific Discovery as Problem Solving (1988) Part III: New Papers 7. Subjective Rationality and the Explanation of Social Behaviour by Raymond Boudon 8. Organizational Learning, Problem Solving and the Division of Labour by Massimo Egidi 9. Cognitive Constraints of Economic Rationality by Riccardo Viale 10. Implications for Economics by Robin Marris Index
