Roger Frantz

Herbert Simon. Artificial intelligence as a framework for understanding intuition

Abstract Herbert Simon made overlapping substantive contributions to the fields of economics, psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, decision theory, and organization theory. Simon’s work was motivated by the belief that neither the human mind, human thinking and decision making, nor human creativity need be mysterious. It was after he helped create “thinking” machines that Simon came to understand human intuition as subconscious pattern recognition. In doing so he showed that intuition need not be associated with magic and mysticism, and that it is complementary with analytical thinking. This paper will show how the overlaps in his work and especially his work on AI affected his view towards intuition.

The effect of early labor market experience upon internal-external locus of control among young male workers.

This study examined the influence of some personal and labor market factors on changes in internal-external control among young male workers. Utilizing 960 respondents from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experiences national sample for young men, multiple regression analysis, and an abbreviated version of the Rotter Internal-External Control Scale, this study found that labor market success, race, and employment in the private sector enhance feelings of internal control during the transition between school and work.

Intuitive elements in Adam Smith

Abstract This article is about the inclusion of the concept of intuition in the writings of Adam Smith. Intuition is a mental process that includes drawing inferences so quickly that reasoning seems to be absent, synthesizing disparate elements into a grand vision and sound judgment. More common everyday terms include gut feeling, educated hunch, a sixth sense, picking up vibes, and the Eureka or aha experience. The common element in all these descriptions is that intuition is a mental act but not a conscious analytical—logical, sequential, step-by-step, and reasoned—process of thinking. This article shows that Smith’s solution for achieving social harmony, a major interest that runs throughout his various works on ethics and economics, included using not only both self-interest and (what we now call) intuition, but also what Smith called “sympathy” and the “impartial spectator.” This article shows that these ideas are similar to the ones written about by Charles Darwin and Jean Piaget. Second, the article shows that Smith’s early work on grammar not only has relevance to his economics, but also that it used what we now know to be the brain’s division of labor function principle. Third, the article shows that Smith’s early writings on ethics and socio-economic person has direct relevance to his economic treatise, the Wealth of Nations .

Antitrust and X-Efficiency

In economics efficiency has meant allocative efficiency since time immemorial. Allocative efficiency means that the market price is equal to the marginal cost, and that the firm is using the cost minimizing [K/L] ratio. Allocative inefficiency in the market occurs when P ≠ MC. In the firm it means that the firm is either too capital intensive or too labor intensive. Most of the attention in economics has been on market allocative inefficiency. This is because markets will be inefficient if it contains market power. However, since “time immemorial” firms have been assumed to be efficient. Market allocative inefficiency for the entire economy is between 1/10 of 1% and 1/100 of 1% of GDP. For a

First Generation Behavioral Economists on Rationality, and Its Limits

16 trillion GDP this is equal to between

Adam Smith: Eighteenth-Century Polymath

16,000,000,000 and

X-Efficiency, Its Critics, and a Reply

1,600,000,000. By way of comparison, each year Americans spend

Empirical Evidence: Input Ratios and International Trade

7,000,000,000 on potato chips. However, inefficiency is not limited to allocative inefficiency. In 1966 Harvey Leibenstein began using the term X-(in)efficiency. The use of the X stems from the fact that when Harvey Leibenstein first wrote about it he claimed that the nature of this type of non-allocative (in)efficiency was not known, hence the X. X-inefficiency has been estimated to be in the area of three percent of the GDP. For a

Empirical Evidence: Market Structure and Firm Organization

16 trillion economy this is

X-Efficiency Theory: 2

480,000,000,000. This paper reviews some of the issues surrounding X-(in)efficiency including some raised by Oliver Williamson, as well as reviewing the empirical literature on X-efficiency in the financial sectors of the U.S. and Europe.