HiPhiS Seminar: “Emerging Phenomena in Economics—The Case of Institutions”

Tuesday, June 20, 2017, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
, IAE, Robert Reix Lecture Hall, Building 29, Triolet Campus.
Interuniversity Seminar on the History and Philosophy of Science, 2017 Series: “Causes, Foundations, Origins.”
Lecture presented by Bernard Walliser, economist, CNRS Research Director Emeritus, Paris Sciences Économiques, ENS Paris.

Abstract:

Emergent phenomena, in both the physical and social sciences, refer to the difficulty of modeling macroscopic phenomena based on the properties of underlying microscopic entities. This difficulty may be epistemic in nature or, more fundamentally, ontological, affecting both concepts and relationships. One such phenomenon is illustrated by the spontaneous emergence of institutions in a society, such as the market or money. The role of an institution is to coordinate the actions of agents in the face of failures that can be analyzed within the framework of game theory. Any institution thus appears as a behavioral norm that supports a particular equilibrium in a game. The genesis of this equilibrium can occur through education (solely through the sophisticated reasoning of agents) or through evolution (through agents’ learning processes).
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