We offer a way to test to what extent double-entry book-keeping is the vector of rationalization of merchant activity that was described by Weber, and explore alternative possible motivations. We move the focus away from the structure and theory of accounts into the daily practice of the agents themselves. We use the new, unique database of eighteenth-century merchant accounts developed in Fran...

Managerial decision-making and rationality are impacted and influenced by perceptual processes. This essay seeks to critically analyse and discuss perceptual processes as pivotal in any decision-making endeavour. Its importance is briefly discussed with particular emphasis placed on ways in which certain differences or biases in perception may have on individuals’ understanding of reality as we...

The paper reviews that limitations of the neo-classical economics paradigm in dealing with information: focus on individual rationality, static view of the world, unduly parsimonious characterization of the world of cognition. Then it sketches the contours of an alternative paradigm built on selective rationality, imperfect mental representations, cognitive structures as filters, and an adoptio...

I propose to investigate the computable foundations of decision making along the lines of Classical Behavioural Economics. First, decision makers will be represented as Information Processing Systems underpinned by bounded rationality and satisficing as in the theory of Human Problem Solving proposed by Herbert Simon. The game of Go, which has a finite and large search space, provides a rich pa...

The fundamental challenge of C2 agility is to increase the rationality of operations. An important vehicle for doing so is by increasing the rationality of assessment, from seeing rationality as a mere matter of “facts” and “objective analysis”, to seeing rationality as a function of human cognition in relation to the structures of the environment. At the heart of C2 lies the problem of dealing...

The fundamental challenge of C2 agility is to increase the rationality of operations. An important vehicle for doing so is by increasing the rationality of assessment, from seeing rationality as a mere matter of “facts” and “objective analysis”, to seeing rationality as a function of human cognition in relation to the structures of the environment. At the heart of C2 lies the problem of dealing...

A passage from the Talmud whose explanation eluded commentators for two millennia is elucidated with the aid of principles suggested by modern mathematical Theory of Games. ________________ * Institute of Mathematics, Center for rationality and Interactive Decision Theory, and Department of Economics, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem

Economic theory reduces the concept of rationality to internal consistency. The practice of economics, however, distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs. There is therefore an interest in a theory of rational beliefs, and of the process by which beliefs are generated and justified. We argue that the Bayesian approach is unsatisfactory for this purpose, for several reasons. First, t...