Evolving Norms

This book presents institutional evolution and individual choice as codependent results of behavioral patterns. Drawing on F.A. Hayek's concepts of cognition and cultural evolution, Teraji demonstrates how the relationship between the sensory and social orders can allow economists to track social norms and their effects on the global economy. He redirects attention from the conventional focus on what an individual chooses to the changing social order that determines how an individual chooses. Cultural shifts provide the environmental feedback that challenges the mental models governing individual choice, creating a cycle of coevolution. Teraji develops a general framework from which to examine this symbiotic relationship in order to identify predictive patterns. Not just for behavioral economists, this book will also appeal to those who specialize in institutional economics, the philosophy of economics, and economic sociology.

• social norms
• institutions
• mind
• behavior
• cognition
• order
• evolution

“Building on the pioneering work by Friedrich Hayek and Herbert Simon, Shinji Teraji builds a unique analytical framework to better understand how social norms evolve and possibly converge over time. This has implications for improving one’s understanding of how stable social orders evolve and can be maintained. Key to Teraji’s contribution is modeling the dialectic and dynamic interaction between individuals and their perspectives of reality and the institutional parameters that affect choice behavior.” (Morris Altman, Dean and Head, Newcastle Business School; Professor of Behavioural and Institutional Economics, University of Newcastle, Australia)

• Yamaguchi University, Yamaguchi, Japan

  Shinji Teraji

Shinji Teraji is Professor of Economics at Yamaguchi University, Japan. His research is mainly concerned with behavioral economics, institutional economics, and economic methodology.

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