Causal versus Consequential Motives in Mental Models of Agent Social and Economic Action: Experiments, and the Neoclassical Diversion in Economics
指出新古典效用理论在预测实验结果时存在三个显著失败：非耐用品市场均衡在弱条件下实现、资产市场泡沫在完全信息下出现、信任与最后通牒博弈结果偏离均衡，原因在于只关注行动的结果价值而忽视了行动的动机。
SUMMARY Since the neoclassical revolution of the 1870s, reasoning and analysis in economic theory has been dominated by utility theory, in which: Action implies Outcome implies Utility. I describe three prominent and unexpected failures of this utilitarian framework to predict the replicable outcomes of experiments. First, in supply and demand experiments for non‐durables the predicted equilibrium obtains, but under conditions violating those thought necessary: complete information, large numbers and price‐taking behavior. The failure is in not accounting for the weak conditions under which equilibrium is actually attained. Second, in asset markets it is thought that price bubbles cannot rationally occur under complete common information on fundamental value. Replicable experiments consistently yield price bubbles in violation of this prediction. Third, in two‐person trust and ultimatum games, equilibrium predicted outcomes failed decisively and massively. The observed failures stem from modelling only the outcome consequences of actions, not “the impulses from which action proceeds.” Utility theory rigidly binds the origins of action to their outcome value, thereby trumping alternative mental models of the actor.