On “Pragmatic Socioeconomics” and the Architecture of the Rational Decision Making Framework

ABSTRACT “Pragmatic socioeconomics” seeks to provide a more solid interdisciplinary bridge between economics and sociology, by pragmatically setting aside incompatibles. Its key point, that social norms condition resource allocations also in housing markets, is important and matters for our analysis of affordability and financial and macroeconomic stability. It also extends to the role of housing in transitioning to socially and environmentally sustainable urban futures. However, there are also aspects of “pragmatic socioeconomics” that become entangled in conceptual fault lines between sociology and neoclassical economics and also within economics itself. Drawing on institutional economics (old and new), this commentary focuses on the upwards and downwards reconstituting effects of norms and institutions in decision-making and its implications for “pragmatic socioeconomics”. A second and shorter commentary relates to discussion of price elasticities (demand, income and supply). Both these, in turn, relate to the effect of norms and institutions on housing markets.