Evolving a Neoclassical Approach to Behavioural Economics

The objective of this paper is to show that the behavioural mission of modelling a human being as an agent driven by economic as well as psychological impulses can be accommodated to a large extent within the neoclassical framework which consists of optimising agents arriving at equilibrium. First, it attempts to show that the non-homoeconomicus is as capable of ‘rationality’ as a homoeconomicus (self-centred human); in fact being self-centred has no major implications for the ability to be ‘rational’. Second, it shows that the systematic biases associated with neoclassical predictions of human behaviour can be resolved in many cases by re-specifying the utility function to accommodate psychological factors. Thus, the contribution of the behavioural school would probably lie in altering the way in which neoclassical models are specified but not in rejecting neoclassical methodology altogether. At the same time, it is pointed out in this paper that bounded rationality (satisficing behaviour) of human beings in real life can often generate group behaviour that is systematically different from predictions emerging from the neo classical assumption of perfect rationality (optimising agents).