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A Brain-Focused Foundation for Economic Science

A Proposed Reconciliation between Neoclassical and Behavioral Economics

Palgrave Macmillan
  • Presents an innovative way of considering how best to understand economics: the brain-focused approach to scarcity
  • Unifies behavioral inductive findings with neoclassical deductive methods
  • Provides a nuanced critique of the shortcomings of both neoclassical and behavioral economics, while allowing the benefits of both

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
  2. Lionel Robbins and Scarcity

    • Richard B. McKenzie
    Pages 45-61
  3. From Robbins to Friedman and Beyond

    • Richard B. McKenzie
    Pages 63-92
  4. Behavioral Economics, Evolution, and the Human Brain

    • Richard B. McKenzie
    Pages 93-149
  5. A Brain-Focused Neoclassical Microeconomics

    • Richard B. McKenzie
    Pages 185-206
  6. Back Matter

    Pages 207-219

About this book

This book argues that Lionel Robbins’s construction of the economics field’s organizing cornerstone, scarcity—and all that has been derived from it from economists in Robbins’s time to today—no longer can generate general consent among economists. Since Robbins’ Essay, economists have learned more than Robbins and his cohorts could have imagined about human decision making and about the human brain that is the lynchpin of human decision making. This book argues however that behavioral economists and neuroeconomists, in pointing to numerous ways people fall short of perfectly rational decisions (anomalies, biases, and downright errors), have saved conventional economics from such self-contradictions in what could be viewed as a wayward approach. This book posits that the human brain is the ultimate scarce resource, and that a focus on the brain can bring a new foundation for economics and can save the discipline from hostile criticisms from a variety of non-economists (many psychologists). 

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Authors and Affiliations

  • Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA

    Richard B. McKenzie

About the author

Richard B. McKenzie is the Walter B. Gerken Professor of Management and Society (Emeritus) in the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, USA.  He has authored a large number of books, journal articles, and public commentaries mainly focused on economic policies, and he has maintained an abiding interest in economic methodology over the course of his career. 

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access