Rational Choice

This book offers a rigorous, concise, and nontechnical introduction to some of thefundamental insights of rational choice theory. It draws on formal theories of microeconomics,decision making, games, and social choice, and on ideas developed in philosophy, psychology, andsociology. Itzhak Gilboa argues that economic theory has provided a set of powerful models and broadinsights that have changed the way we think about everyday life. He focuses on basic insights of therational choice paradigm--the general conceptualization rather than a particular theory--thatsurvive recent (and well-justified) critiques of economic theory's various failures. Gilboa explainsthe main concepts in language accessible to the nonspecialist, offering a nonmathematical guide tosome of the main ideas developed in economic theory in the second half of the twentieth century.Chapters cover feasibility and desirability, utility maximization, constrained optimization,expected utility, probability and statistics, aggregation of preferences, games and equilibria, freemarkets, and rationality and emotions. Online appendixes offer additional material, including asurvey of relevant mathematical concepts.