Opening Models of Asset Prices and Risk to Nonroutine Change

This chapter considers an alternative approach to economic analysis, Imperfect Knowledge Economics (IKE), and introduces a model of asset prices and risk that has explicit mathematical microfoundations and yet remains open to nonroutine change. The IKE model consists of representations of individuals' preferences, forecasting behavior, constraints, and decision rules in terms of a set of causal (often called “informational”) variables, which portray the influence of economic policy, institutions, and other features of the social context. It also entails an aggregation rule and processes for the informational variables. The chapter examines irregular swings in asset prices and their relationship to financial risk. It also presents an IKE account of asset price swings before concluding with an analysis of contingent predictions of long swings and their compatibility with rationality.

The Imperfect Knowledge Imperative in Modern Macroeconomics and Finance Theory

This chapter examines the imperfect knowledge imperative in modern macroeconomics and finance theory. It argues that the Rational Expectations Hypothesis (REH) has nothing to do with how even minimally reasonable profit-seeking individuals forecast the future in real-world markets. It attributes REH's insurmountable epistemological difficulties and widespread empirical problems to a single, overarching premise that underpins contemporary macroeconomics and finance theory: nonroutine change is unimportant for understanding outcomes. It also suggests that contemporary behavioral finance models rest on the same core premise as their REH-based counterparts. Finally, it introduces an alternative approach to modeling individual behavior and aggregate outcomes: Imperfect Knowledge Economics, which opens macroeconomics and finance models to nonroutine change and the imperfect knowledge that it engenders.