German economists ignored Schmölders’s behavioral-research program

Evidence

The paradigmatic cases for Schmölders’s plea to introduce psychological and behavioral insights into economic reasoning came from the realm of public and private finance, focusing on tax morale, trust in money, and the psychology of saving. While these fields formed the core of its research agenda, the Research Center for Empirical Socioeconomics also ventured into other areas. Ten years after the presentation of his research program, Schmölders presented the institute’s achievements again in Ordo. Acknowledging that his previous article had failed to spark a debate in the journal, Schmölders proudly presented fifty-seven publications on what he now called “socioeconomic behavioral research” (sozialökonomische Verhaltensforschung) that had been produced in Cologne. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 330

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Schmölders rejected Hayek’s deductive economics in favor of empirical social-science methods — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 329; German financial psychology rejected the assumption that citizens are malleable material for state designs — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 334; A German economist rejected homo economicus in favor of a culturally embedded homo institutionalis — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 329 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• German financial psychology rejected the assumption that citizens are malleable material for state designs #expands (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 334
• A German economist rejected homo economicus in favor of a culturally embedded homo institutionalis #responds-to (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 329
• A German economist proposed grounding economics in empirical behavioral sciences rather than abstractions #qualifies (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 328