The Nobel Prize in behavioral and experimental economics: a contextual and critical appraisal of the contributions of Daniel Kahneman and Cernon Smith

Abstract

Daniel Kahneman and Vernon Smith were the joint recipients of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics. Kahneman's work challenges the assumption that individuals behave in a manner consistent with conventional economic wisdom. He maintains that individuals tend to be systematically error prone and possibly irrational. Smith, on the other hand, developed experiments and experimental environments to test hypotheses emanating from the conventional economic wisdom. Smith finds that, in spite of Kahneman's work, economic agents are rational and that economies are efficient. These differing views are discussed and placed in the context of the methodological and public policy debates in economics.