This commentary considers the positive and negative consequences of early economic modelling and explores potential future directions. Early economic modelling offers device manufacturers an opportunity to assess the potential value of an innovation at an early stage of development. Early modelling can direct resources into potentially viable technologies and reduce inv...

In this paper, we undertake the first examination of the effects of personality on individual economic choices over public environmental goods, using a stated preference approach. Based on three data sets from three separate choice modelling studies, we examine the effects of personality on preferences for the status quo, for changes in environmental quality, and over the costs of investing in ...

94<100 words) Economic intuitions concerning rational behaviour in interactive social situations are shaped by idealized models which are regarded as “approximately true”. But ideal models cannot be meaningfully deemed approximately true unless asymptotically convergent processes imply them as limit cases. We illustrate by various examples – infinitely patient customers on durable monopoly mark...

Confidence in macro-economic forecasting has periodically been punctured by episodes of economic turbulence and concomitant predictive failure. The poor performance in predicting the consumer boom in the late 1980’s, and the depth and duration of the recession in the 1990’s, can be viewed as merely the latest examples in a catalogue of failures, with noteworthy antecedents including the under-p...