Cinta de Moebio: Revista de Epistemología de Ciencias Sociales

Ivarola, L. (2017) La incompatibilidad de la incertidumbre en economía con la lógica del homo economicus y con la construcción de sistemas cerrados. Cinta moebio 58: 1-12. doi: 10.4067/S0717-554X2017000100001

PDF

Incompatibility of uncertainty in economics with the logic of the homo economicus and with the construction of closed systems

Leonardo Ivarola (ivarola@economicas.uba.ar) CONICET (Buenos Aires, Argentina) ORCID: 0000-0002-9997-3720

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to show that the standard approach of economic modelling (which consists of assuming closed systems and optimizing agents) is ineffective for the issue of uncertainty. Since under uncertainty economic agents do not know the final outcome of a course of action, their decisions should not be represented by the process of constrained optimization. The construction of axiomatic systems that lead to the derivation of a single result is also put into question; its replacement by a simulation-based approach is proposed.

Key words: uncertainty, homo economicus, economic models, simulation, closed systems