News from the lab
Article Abstract:
Experimental economics has tackled a range of issues including asset markets and public goods, and its has been useful in a number of ways but has not necessarily made economics more scientific. Experiments showing preference reversals do not disprove utility theory, utility theorists argue, because people may behave differently outside the laboratory. Experiments provide an artificial environment in which irrational behavior does not have the same consequences, nor rational behavior the same rewards as outside the lab. Universal constants are not found in economics, which makes it a different type of subject from physics.
Publication Name: The Economist (UK)
Subject: Business, international
ISSN: 0013-0613
Year: 1999
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French dressing
Article Abstract:
French industrial policy has involved erecting barriers against foreign ownership in strategic industries such as banking, petroleum, automobiles and aircraft. Companies in these industries are increasingly exposed to global competition and have to expand outside France if they are to be forces in world markets. European companies have been affected by consolidation. A national merger could take place between Elf Aquitaine and TotalFina, which has bid for Elf. National mergers are easier to carry out than cross-border mergers, and French encouragement of such mergers makes sense from this point of view.
Publication Name: The Economist (UK)
Subject: Business, international
ISSN: 0013-0613
Year: 1999
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