Economic Sociology

[YoungEconomist]

Originally Posted by Diplomer

The field of behavioural economics could be interesting for you. Perhaps, you even remember Kahneman, a psychologist, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics a few years ago. The main psychologists contributions to economics are theories about how people decide. Classical theories like "maximization of expected utility" can easily be classified as "rejected" (in positive decision theory, not normative). Psychologists models like Prospect Theory can explain observations much better.

Yeah, I'm aware of Kahneman. I should have been more clear, I meant to say, are there economists who study how preferences are formed and the like.

[Weary]

Originally Posted by representative_agent

I disagree. First, I think there is a wide field on the border between economics and sociology that has to be analyzed from both disciplines' perspective.

It`s ok to be so naive while in college, but as you are probably preparing for a grad school, maybe you take a look at some papers in the field you are defending?

[representative_agent]

Originally Posted by Weary

It`s ok to be so naive while in college, but as you are probably preparing for a grad school, maybe you take a look at some papers in the field you are defending?

1) I'm defending the field, not every paper in it.

2) I may be naive. But with guys like Akerlof or Tirole I'm in pretty good company.

3) Their papers on the topic are not too bad.

4) I hope you can elaborate a little bit on your statement. The quality of your remark makes me hope that you have something better to offer.

[chestnut.cc]

go back a few hundred years... see what they did... in any field... and see the pure breadth of what they covered... if being naive is being reverent of the history and nature of thought... then so be it...

[Weary]

You are not even curious, why`d you want to go to grad school? List of important publications in sociology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Does it look even remotely like Tirole`s work? Field means journals and conferences, now what on earth would he do at Conferences ??

[representative_agent]

Although the following article is not listed on Wikipedia, it is still worth reading:

Benabou, Tirole: "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior", American Economic Review, vol. 96, n. 5, 2006, p. 1652-1678.

It is this article that raised my interest on the role of social pressures on economic behaviour. Again, I'm not defending the literature of sociology, but I think that there some very important questions treated by sociologists that are also relevant to economics.

You may find my point of view naive and I would be happy to have a serious and objective discussion about these issues. However, I do not see what my opinions in this context have to do with my ability to go to grad school. And I am relieved to know that the adcoms of several Top 10 schools did not share your assessment of my skills this year.

In every debate there is a line between challenging an opponent's argument and directly offending the opponent. Again, I would appreciate to have a serious discussion with you. But if you are not willing to make this distinction, we should end the thread at this point.

[Weary]

Cmon you don`t have to be so nice before evil moderator catches us hehe
Congrats with admits, and as you might find from my post I was assessing not any of your skills but rather your curiosity that could lead you to whatever source you may use to read something on the actual discipline of economic sociology. Was that really personal? Well I didn`t intend it to be so, do I have any incentive?
Economists often state that they don`t like when people try to challenge their discipline with common sense having not taken any course in it or read any related book without "freak" in the name. So why do you commit the same thing versus the fairly established field of economic sociology? It has its own experts and Tirole with his expirience of being laughed at at the corporate finance conference should know better if he ever states that aforementioned article belongs to the field of economic sociology.
As you might find out I`m not really a fan of people who attempt to apply their magnificent ideas outside of their field of expertise. I`m also not a fan of experimental economics, introduction of new parameters in order to discover whole new truth (including some Tirole stuff on bureaucracies) and suspicious of social interactions literature, so I`m afraid some of my casual comments might offend you as well, who knows.
Otherwise, peace, bro

[representative_agent]

No worries, man

You're right, I haven't read much on "Economic Sociology", which is why my posts were more meant to address the "border between economics and sociology" in general. (So maybe I went a bit off topic)
It seems that we have a very different view on interdisciplinary work. In my opinion, the adoption (or rejection) of findings from other disciplines can be extremely valuable. Of course, once you leave your own territory, there will always be a risk of getting lost. But is this a reason for staying at home and ignoring the rest of the world of social sciences?


ps: Sorry for the late reply. I was on holiday.

[oldprogrammer]

Even though I haven't spent any real effort looking into economic sociology, I find the concept interesting.

My opinion is that sociology is a field rich in theory but lacking in mathematical rigor. As a sociologist with a background in economics, I would think you would be able to add to the study of economic sociology by expressing sociological theory in a more formal manner.

My only fear in going down that road is that you would be a black sheep, never really fitting in ideologically. The mindset of economic sociology is naturally heterodox, so most sociologists reject neoclassical theory because it conflicts with their worldview. So you may find yourself unemployable by most sociology departments who find your work disagreeable. And you will likely find your work largely unpublishable - being too neoclassical for sociological journals, and not pure enough for economic ones.

But I think there is great potential for exceptional research at the intersection of these two fields. It's just a matter of finding a sociology professor willing to support your research. And again, I don't really know much about economic sociology, so I may be entirely off base.

[YoungEconomist]

Originally Posted by oldprogrammer

My opinion is that sociology is a field rich in theory but lacking in mathematical rigor. As a sociologist with a background in economics, I would think you would be able to add to the study of economic sociology by expressing sociological theory in a more formal manner.

I don't know much about sociology, but I've often felt the same way about psychology. That is, if someone with a decent mathematical and economic theory background went into the field, they could probably make an academic career out of taking pre-existing models and theories, and formulating them more mathematically. Put differently (and I hope I don't offend anyone, as it's not my intention) there are many interesting things to be said in sociology and psychology, however, I think it'd be much stonger if they could bring some of the mathematical rigour that modern economists use.

However, I see 2 main roadblocks in trying to do this. 1) Maybe it's much more difficult to mathematically model things in sociology or psychology, which is why it hasn't really been done. 2) It is possible to forumulate the ideas, concepts, theories, etc mathematically. However, trying to do so will not get one very far, as their peers in the field won't really care, understand, take interest, etc. For example, let's say some sociologist is at an academic conference and is trying to talk about their technical research which relies heavily on concepts from real analysis, stochasitc caluculus, etc. If most of your peers have never even taken calculus (or if they did, it may have been many years ago in highschool or college) then it likely wouldn't catch on. This is one reason I think the first people who will probably make sociology or psychology more mathematically rigourous will likely be economists (either mainstream or heterdox). In fact, an economist could probably have a good academic career by mathematically formulating ideas from psychology and sociology (economists would be interested in those papers I think).

Lastly, I think it would also be interesting if they utilized more econometrics in psychology and sociology. In psychology, all the evidence comes from data that was collected in an experiment. Obviously experiments have many advantages, but one of their disadvantages is telling us how much the theory plays a role in the real world. For example, we know that cognitive disonance plays a role in peoples decision making, however, we have no idea how much. As far as how you'd econometrically test some of these theories, I have no idea.