Subjective Uncertainty and Structures of Social Planning
{'Code': '08080301', 'Directorate': {'Abbreviation': 'BIO', 'LongName': 'Direct For Biological Sciences'}, 'Division': {'Abbreviation': 'DBI', 'LongName': 'Div Of Biological Infrastructure'}}
{'SignBlockName': 'Ronald J. Overmann', 'PO_EMAI': None, 'PO_PHON': None}
Economists have distinguished between uncertainty about the state               of economic environment and uncertainty of economic agents about                the decisions or planned actions of agents with whom they are                   interacting (subjective and endogenous uncertainty).                            Traditional general equilibrium models preclude this latter type                of uncertainty or reduce it to socially inconsequential levels                  through a number of artificial assumptions.  Relaxing these                     assumptions means that the possibility of disequilibrium choices                has to be taken seriously, both as an objective possibility and                 as a possibility countenanced by economic agents; this in turn                  paves the way for accounts of certain institutions and practices                as structures which evolve out of agents' attempts to cope with                 the resulting uncertainty.  These institutions and practices are                what Dr. Sensat calls a "reification" (making concrete an                       abstract idea).  Reification can be criticized as a socially                    specific barrier to practical rationality.  Under this grant, Dr.               Sensat will reconstruct this thesis of social reification as                    follows:  First, social structures of reification will be                       characterized as socially specific modes of response to the                     "subjective uncertainty" experienced by agents about the actions                of other agents with whom they are interacting.  The                            characterization will connect reification with certain game-                    theoretic equilibria on the one hand and with the so-called                     "sunspot" equilibria of general equilibrium theory on the other.                these connections will reveal inherent limitations to the ability               of structures of reification to resolve subjective uncertainty in               an optimal way.  Second, structures of social planning will be                  defined and compared with structures of reification with respect                to feasibility, efficiency and incentive compatibility.  Third,                 the new concept of reification will be used in a critique of                    exploitation as based on an ideal of rational agency rather than                a claim of distributive justice.  The project promises to                       increase our understanding of the nature of rational agency in                  social contexts, the compatibility and relative merits of                       economic planning and markets, and the nature of exploitative                   social relationships.
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{'Code': '1353', 'Text': 'Hist & Philosophy of SET'}
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