IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001211224

From Wald to Savage: Homo Economicus Becomes a Bayesian Statistician (2013)

Giocoli, Nicola (Author)

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
Volume: 49, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 63-95

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Economics Bayes theorem Inference Reason Science and economics Statistics 20th century Wald, Abraham Savage, Leonard J.

Bayesian rationality is the paradigm of rational behavior in neoclassical economics. An economic agent is deemed rational when she maximizes her subjective expected utility and consistently revises her beliefs according to Bayes's rule. The paper raises the question of how, when and why this characterization of rationality came to be endorsed by mainstream economists. Though no definitive answer is provided, it is argued that the question is of great historiographic importance. The story begins with Abraham Wald's behaviorist approach to statistics and culminates with Leonard J. Savage's elaboration of subjective expected utility theory in his 1954 classic The Foundations of Statistics. The latter's acknowledged fiasco to achieve a reinterpretation of traditional inference techniques along subjectivist and behaviorist lines raises the puzzle of how a failed project in statistics could turn into such a big success in economics. Possible answers call into play the emphasis on consistency requirements in neoclassical theory and the impact of the postwar transformation of U.S. business schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001211224/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Weatherson, Brian; (1999)
Begging the question and Bayesians (/isis/citation/CBB000110819/)

Article Forcina, Antonio; Giorgi, Giovanni Maria; (2005)
Early Gini's Contributions to Inequality Measurement and Statistical Inference (/isis/citation/CBB000931987/)

Thesis Martin, Shirley Ann; (2012)
Grounding Tools That Travel: Ideology, Research Style, and Imagined Community in the Circulation of Inferential Statistics, 1918--1966 (/isis/citation/CBB001560742/)

Article Pradier, Pierre-Charles; (2006)
De usu artis conjectandi in jure: quid de oeconomia (politica)? (/isis/citation/CBB001021374/)

Book Crook, Tom; O'Hara, Glen; (2011)
Statistics and the Public Sphere: Numbers and the People in Modern Britain, c. 1800--2000 (/isis/citation/CBB001033382/)

Article Boulat, Régis; (2006)
La productivité et sa mesure en France (1944-1955) (/isis/citation/CBB000931354/)

Book Chassé, Daniel Speich; (2013)
Die Erfindung des Bruttosozialprodukts: globale Ungleichheit in der Wissensgeschichte der Ökonomie (/isis/citation/CBB001551258/)

Book Stapleford, Thomas A.; (2009)
The Cost of Living in America: A Political History of Economic Statistics, 1880--2000 (/isis/citation/CBB000952777/)

Book David W. Darrow; (2018)
Tsardom of Sufficiency, Empire of Norms: Statistics, Land Allotments, and Agrarian Reform in Russia, 1700-1921 (/isis/citation/CBB012196293/)

Book Mirowski, Philip; (2002)
Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science (/isis/citation/CBB000201486/)

Book Burgin, Angus; (2012)
The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression (/isis/citation/CBB001213812/)

Article Porter, Theodore M.; (2007)
The Rise of Cost-Benefit Rationality as Solution to a Political Problem of Distrust (/isis/citation/CBB001022567/)

Article Shul'gina, I. V.; (2008)
Industrial Research and Development in the Planned Soviet Economy: From Stalin to Gorbachev (/isis/citation/CBB000930372/)

Article Kuusela, Vesa; (2012)
Laplace---A Pioneer of Statistical Inference (/isis/citation/CBB001212110/)

Article Stigler, Stephen M.; (2010)
Darwin, Galton and the Statistical Enlightenment (/isis/citation/CBB001035750/)

Article Lai, Tze Leung; (2009)
History of Martingales in Sequential Analysis and Time Series (/isis/citation/CBB001021425/)

Book McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch; (2011)
The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy (/isis/citation/CBB001231898/)

Article Joseph Louis Lagrange; Maria Teresa Borgato; (2013)
Solution d'un problème sur les rentes viagères (/isis/citation/CBB996833834/)

Article Bruegel, Martin; Chevet, Jean-Michel; Lecocq, Sébastien; (2014)
Animal Protein and Rational Choice: Diet in the Eighteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001201310/)

Article Mclean, Iain; Lorrey, Haidee; Colomer, Josep M.; (2008)
Social Choice in Medieval Europe (/isis/citation/CBB001021394/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}