Economic Exchange and SocietyBart Wilson and Vernon Smith (HNRS 131) From the perspectives of two forms of rational orders, constructivist and ecological, our course will study economic exchange and its implications for economic policy. We will examine the extent to which reason and the deliberate action of a constructivist order and the undesigned principles of norms and traditions in an ecological order can inform our understanding of impersonal exchange in markets and personal social exchange with friends, neighbors, and family. On the topic of impersonal exchange, the course will cover such issues as international trade, the California energy crisis, policy proposals for gasoline markets, and a stock market bubbles and crashes. In juxtaposition to the observed self-interested behavior in markets, we will also study the pervasive cooperation that people simultaneously exhibit in social settings and how it is supported by the biological and cultural evolution of the mind.
This course uses a combination of hands-on learning in laboratory experiments and roundtable discussions of readings. In additional to the faculty's own research, the readings range from works by 18th century Scottish philosophers Adam Smith and David Hume to 20th century Nobel economist F.A. Hayek.
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