Bio:
In his research Philipp C. Wichardt works on questions related to the game theoretic modelling of bounded rationality, psychological motivations of behaviour, public economics and philosophy of economics. He received his Phd in Economics from the University of Bonn in 2006, where he stayed as a PostDoc. Today Philipp holds the Chair of Microeconomics at the University of Rostock and is part of the behavioural research group at the Kiel Institute for the world Economic. Moreover, he is a research affiliate at the Department for Economics in Lund (Sweden) and CESifo in Munich.
Dates of Visit:
Tuesday 15th March – Friday 25th March, 2016
Project Title:
Models and Fictions in (Micro-)Economics
Project Description:
Over the last decades evidence has mounted showing that the axioms of expected utility theory, the basic work-horse of economic modelling, are descriptively problematic. In response to this development various proposals about how to understand and interpret common practice in microeconomics have been made. Contributing to the ongoing discussion, I have adopted the approach proposed by Professor Frigg – to (generally) view models as fictions – to microeconomic modelling, arguing that microeconomics is a good case in point. During my stay at the LSE, I intend to explore, the more general consequences of my approach for the interpretation of (normative) welfare economics as well as for the understanding of new sub disciplines such as behavioural economics.