What happens to our conception of mind and rational agency when we take seriously future-directed intentions and plans and their roles as inputs into further practical reasoning? The author's initial efforts in responding to this question resulted in a series of papers that he wrote during the early 1980s. In this book, Bratman develops further some of the main themes of these essays and also explores a variety of related ideas and issues. He develops a planning theory of intention. Intentions are treated as elements of partial plans of action. These plans play basic roles in practical reasoning, roles that support the organization of our activities over time and socially. Bratman explores the impact of this approach on a wide range of issues, including the relation between intention and intentional action, and the distinction between intended and expected effects of what one intends.

This investigation of the overwhelming appeal of quantification in the modern world discusses the development of cultural meanings of objectivity over two centuries. How are we to account for the current prestige and power of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is seen as desirable in social and economic investigation as a result of its successes in the study of nature. Theodore Porter is not content with this. Why should the kind of success achieved in the study of stars, molecules, or cells be an attractive model for research on human societies? he asks. And, indeed, how should we understand the pervasiveness of quantification in the sciences of nature? In his view, we should look in the reverse direction: comprehending the attractions of quantification in business, government, and social research will teach us something new about its role in psychology, physics, and medicine.
Drawing on a wide range of examples from the laboratory and from the worlds of accounting, insurance, cost-benefit analysis, and civil engineering, Porter shows that it is "exactly wrong" to interpret the drive for quantitative rigor as inherent somehow in the activity of science except where political and social pressures force compromise. Instead, quantification grows from attempts to develop a strategy of impersonality in response to pressures from outside. Objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts, quantification becoming most important where elites are weak, where private negotiation is suspect, and where trust is in short supply.

What is the correct concept behind measures of inflation? Does money cause business activity or is it the other way around? Shall we stimulate growth by raising aggregate demand or rather by lowering taxes and thereby providing incentives to produce? Policy-relevant questions such as these are of immediate and obvious importance to the welfare of societies. The standard approach in dealing with them is to build a model, based on economic theory, answer the question for the model world and then apply the results to economic phenomena outside. Data come in, if at all, only in testing a limited number of the model's consequences. Despite some critical voices, economic methodology too has by and large subscribed to a "theory first" approach to applied economics. Error in Economics systematically develops an alternative to the theory-based orthodoxy. It places the methodical study of evidence at the centre of the scientific enterprise and thus provides a foundation for a methodology of evidence-based economics. But the book does not stop at the truism that claims should be based on the best available evidence. Rather, detailed studies in the areas of measurement, causal inference and policy analysis show what it means for a claim to be evidence-based in the context of a concrete case. The examples discussed concern topics as diverse as consumer price indices, radio spectrum auctions, the transmission mechanism, natural experiments on minimum wages and the evaluation of counterfactuals for policy. Error in Economics is essential reading for economic methodologists, philosophers of science and anyone interested in how claims about socio-economic matters are validated.

This volume explains recent theoretical developments in the econometric modelling of relationships between different statistical series. The statistical techniques explored analyse relationships between different variables, over time, such as the relationship between variables in a macroeconomy. Examples from Professor Terasvirta's empirical work are given. Professors Granger and Terasvirta are leading exponents of techniques of dynamic, multivariate analysis. They illustrate in this volume exploratory ways of using such techniques to provide models of nonlinear relationships between variables. This is an extension of previous work on linear relationships, and on univariate models. These developments will be of use to econometricians wishing to construct and use models of nonlinear, dynamic, multivariate relationships, such as an investment function, or a production function. Particular attention is paid to the case of a single dependent variable modelled by a few explanatory variables and the lagged dependent variable in nonlinear form. The book concentrates on stochastic series, since the existence of unexpected shocks strongly suggests that economic variables are stochastic. Granger and Terasvirta also discuss the division of these nonlinear relationships into parametric and nonparametric models.

This book, and its companion volume in the Econometric Society Monographs series (ESM number 32), present a collection of papers by Clive W. J. Granger. His contributions to economics and econometrics, many of them seminal, span more than four decades and touch on all aspects of time series analysis. The papers assembled in this volume explore topics in causality, integration and cointegration, and long memory. Those in the companion volume investigate themes in causality, integration and cointegration, and long memory. The two volumes contain the original articles as well as an introduction written by the editors.

The History of Econometric Ideas covers the period from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, illustrating how economists first learned to harness statistical methods to measure and test the "laws" of economics. Though scholarly, Dr. Morgan's book is very accessible; it does not require a high level of prior statistical knowledge, and will be of interest to practicing statisticians and economists.

"Econometrics" explains the relationship of econometrics to economics and statistics; outlines the process of formulating economic hypotheses mathematically and of subjecting them to a statistical test; deals with the various component equations of the economic system; and illustrates the use of econometric methods for policy purposes.

PLEASE UPDATE SAGE INDIA AND SAGE UK ADDRESSES ON IMPRINT PAGE.

Gilboa and Schmeidler provide a new paradigm for modeling decision making under uncertainty. Case-based decision theory suggests that people make decisions by analogies to past cases: they tend to choose acts that performed well in the past in similar situations, and to avoid acts that performed poorly. The authors describe the general theory and its relationship to planning, repeated choice problems, inductive inference, and learning. They highlight its mathematical and philosophical foundations and compare it to expected utility theory as well as to rule-based systems.
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In keeping with their successful introductory econometrics text, Stock and Watson motivate each methodological topic with a real-world policy application that uses data, so that readers apply the theory immediately. Introduction to Econometrics, Brief, is a streamlined version of their text, including the fundamental topics, an early review of statistics and probability, the core material of regression with cross-sectional data, and a capstone chapter on conducting empirical analysis. Introduction and Review: Economic Questions and Data; Review of Probability; Review of Statistics. Fundamentals of Regression Analysis: Linear Regression with One Regressor; Regression with a Single Regressor: Hypothesis Tests and Confidence Intervals in the Single-Regressor Model; Linear Regression with Multiple Regressors; Hypothesis Tests and Confidence Intervals in the Multiple Regressor Model; Nonlinear Regression Functions; Assessing Studies Based on Multiple Regression; Conducting a Regression Study Using Economic Data. MARKET : For all readers interested in econometrics.

In The Mind within the Brain, David Redish brings together cutting edge research in psychology, robotics, economics, neuroscience, and the new fields of neuroeconomics and computational psychiatry, to offer a unified theory of human decision-making. Most importantly, Redish shows how vulnerabilities, or "failure-modes," in the decision-making system can lead to serious dysfunctions, such as irrational behavior, addictions, problem gambling, and PTSD. Told with verve and humor in an easily readable style, Redish makes these difficult concepts understandable. Ranging widely from the surprising roles of emotion, habit, and narrative in decision-making, to the larger philosophical questions of how mind and brain are related, what makes us human, the nature of morality, free will, and the conundrum of robotics and consciousness, The Mind within the Brain offers fresh insight into one of the most complex aspects of human behavior.

The years since World War II have seen rapid shifts in the relative positions of different countries and regions. Leading political economist Mancur Olson offers a new and compelling theory to explain these shifts in fortune and then tests his theory against evidence from many periods of history and many parts of the world.
“[T]his elegant, readable book. . . sets out to explain why economies succumb to the ‘British disease,’ the kind of stagnation and demoralization that is now sweeping Europe and North America. . . . A convincing book that could make a big difference in the way we think about modern economic problems.”—Peter Passell, The New York Times Book Review
“Schumpeter and Keynes would have hailed the insights Olson gives into the sicknesses of the modern mixed economy.”—Paul A. Samuelson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“One of the really important books in social science of the past half-century.”—Scott Gordon, The Canadian Journal of Economics
“The thesis of this brilliant book is that the longer a society enjoys political stability, the more likely it is to develop powerful special-interest lobbies that in turn make it less efficient economically.”—Charles Peters, The Washington Monthly
“Remarkable. The fundamental ideas are simple, yet they provide insight into a wide array of social and historical issues. . . . The Rise and Decline of Nations promises to be a subject of productive interdisciplinary argument for years to come.”—Robert O. Keohane, Journal of Economic Literature
“I urgently recommend it to all economists and to a great many non-economists.”—Gordon Tullock, Public Choice
“Olson’s theory is illuminating and there is no doubt that The Rise and Decline of Nations will exert much influence on ideas and politics for many decades to come.”—Pierre Lemieux, Reason
Co-winner of the 1983 American Political Science Association’s Gladys M. Kammerer Award for the best book on U.S. national policy

What is the best way to auction an asset? How should a group of people organize themselves to ensure the best provision of public goods? How should exchanges be organized? In An Introduction to the Theory of Mechanism Design, Tilman Börgers addresses these questions and more through an exploration of the economic theory of mechanism design. Mechanism design is reverse game theory. Whereas game theory takes the rules of the game as a given and makes predictions about the behavior of strategic players, the theory of mechanism design goes a step further and selects the optimal rules of the game.
A relatively new economic theory, mechanism design studies the instrument itself as well as the results of the instrument. An Introduction to the Theory of Mechanism Design provides rigorous but accessible explanations of classic results in the theory of mechanism design, such as Myerson's theorem on expected revenue maximizing auctions, Myerson and Satterthwaite's theorem on the impossibility of ex post efficient bilateral trade with asymmetric information, and Gibbard and Satterthwaite's theorem on the non-existence of dominant strategy voting mechanisms. Börgers also provides an examination of the frontiers of current research in the area with an original and unified perspective that will appeal to advanced students of economics.
"Tilman Borgers offers the first book-length introduction into the theory of mechanism design. Written in a very personal and masterful style, he carefully covers the main developments in theory of mechanism design-the theory of how to choose the rules of the game-over the past decades. It will be an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses for many years to come."
Dirk Bergemann, Douglass and Marion Campbell Professor of Economics and Chair, Yale University
"Tilman Borgers gives a beautifully lucid and elegant development of mechanism design in this wonderful book. His masterful exposition provides a unified and cohesive treatment of modern mechanism design, starting from first principles and working through topics at the leading edge of the research frontier. This book is a delight and an invaluable resource for those new to the field and experts alike."
Chris Shannon, Richard and Lisa Steiny Professor of Economics and Professor of Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley
"This book provides an integrated treatment of the theory of mechanism design by a leading practitioner in this area. It covers the core theory together with chapters on recent developments in robust mechanism design and dynamic mechanism design. The core theory is built up in an original and pedagogically successful way, starting with screening in chapter 2 and immediately using those tools to develop leading applications of Bayesian mechanism design-auctions, bilateral trade, and public goods-in chapter 3. These results can then naturally be adapted to dominant strategies in chapter 4. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 then deal with the general theories of incentive compatibility, Bayesian mechanism design, and dominant strategy mechanism design.
The first seven chapters of the book focus on the quasi-linear environments studied in most economic applications, with more general environments ('non-transferable utility') postponed to chapter 8. This ordering of material reflects not the historical development of the subject but a natural and effective path to learn the material. Borgers develops a unified treatment of core material without attempting to be exhaustive. Valuable endnotes at the end of each chapter then explain the historical context and relation to the literature more broadly. It will serve as an excellent textbook for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, and an invaluable reference for researchers."
Stephen Morris, Professor of Economics, Princeton University

Review
"This is a fantastic book. It presents an intelligent, rigorous, and thought-provoking treatment of the theory of choice under uncertainty. The combination of philosophical and mathematical approaches is a treat. Graduate students and professional economists alike have much to learn from this book." - Daron Acemoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"This is a beautifully written book that I recommend to anyone who is interested in understanding the 'what,' 'how,' and 'why' of decision theory. The balance between conceptual issues, formalism, and philosophical underpinnings is unique. It will become a standard reference and text." - Larry Epstein, Boston University
"With his seminal works, Itzhak Gilboa is one of the leading figures in the 'neoclassical' decision theory that in the past 20 years has considerably expanded the scope of the classical theory pioneered by de Finetti, Ramsey, Savage, and von Neumann. This book provides a superb and much-needed introduction to this exciting research area." - Massimo Marinacci, Collegio Carlo Alberto, Italy
"At the heart of most economic analysis is a description of how individuals make decisions. There have been fundamental advances in our understanding of decision making in recent years, and this book provides an extremely accessible explanation of the current state of the field. Perhaps more importantly, it lays out the conceptual underpinnings of decision theory: why the various assumptions in modeling decision making are made and how they affect economic predictions." - Andrew Postlewaite, University of Pennsylvania
"Expected utility theory underlies most of statistics, economics, and finance. But are utility functions and probabilities all that we need to formulate wise decisions? And where do utility functions and probabilities come from? Written by the distinguished creator of new decision theories Itzhak Gilboa, Theory of Decision under Uncertainty is a beautifully written critical account of decision theory that answers these and other important questions. Gilboa's work opens doors for both theorists and applied workers." - Thomas Sargent, New York University
Product Description
This book describes the classical axiomatic theories of decision under uncertainty, as well as critiques thereof and alternative theories. It focuses on the meaning of probability, discussing some definitions and surveying their scope of applicability. The behavioral definition of subjective probability serves as a way to present the classical theories, culminating in Savage's theorem. The limitations of this result as a definition of probability lead to two directions - first, similar behavioral definitions of more general theories, such as non-additive probabilities and multiple priors, and second, cognitive derivations based on case-based techniques.

A lively and informal introduction to the role of uncertainty and probability in people's lives from an everyday perspective
From television game shows and gambling techniques to weather forecasting and the financial markets, virtually every aspect of modern life involves situations in which the outcomes are uncertain and of varying qualities. But as noted statistician Dennis Lindley writes in this distinctive text, "We want you to face up to uncertainty, not hide it away under false concepts, but to understand it and, moreover, to use the recent discoveries so that you can act in the face of uncertainty more sensibly than would have been possible without the skill."
Accessibly written at an elementary level, this outstanding text examines uncertainty in various everyday situations and introduces readers to three rules--craftily laid out in the book--that prove uncertainty can be handled with as much confidence as ordinary logic. Combining a concept of utility with probability, the book insightfully demonstrates how uncertainty can be measured and used in everyday life, especially in decision-making and science.
With a focus on understanding and using probability calculations, Understanding Uncertainty demystifies probability and:
* Explains in straightforward detail the logic of uncertainty, its truths, and its falsehoods
* Explores what has been learned in the twentieth century about uncertainty
* Provides a logical, sensible method for acting in the face of uncertainty
* Presents vignettes of great discoveries made in the twentieth century
* Shows readers how to discern if another person--whether a lawyer, politician, scientist, or journalist--is talking sense, posing the right questions, or obtaining sound answers
Requiring only a basic understanding of mathematical concepts and operations, Understanding Uncertainty is useful as a text for all students who have probability or statistics as part of their course, even at the most introductory level.