Intro
George Akerlof is an American economist who, throughout his career, has continuously emphasized the importance of integrating psychology and economics. The importance of incorporating factors such as emotion and cognitive bias into economic models has been increasingly acknowledged over the past decades. With his theories of asymmetric information, the role of identity in economics, and animal spirits, the psychological factors that influence our economic decision-making, it is clear that Akerlof has played a key role in bringing these two fields together.
I think it’s natural to combine psychology and macroeconomics. Actually, if you don’t take psychology into account, I think it’s fairly hard to give a model of the economy that explains a great deal of the economic fluctuations that are going on.
– George A. Akerlof in an interview with Conor Clarke for The Atlantic in 2009
