Book Reviews

摘要

Deception in Markets: An Economic Analysis is a series of essays edited by Caroline Gerschlager. The purpose of the book is to show how modern economic theory deals with or in some cases fails to deal with the phenomena of deception—dishonesty and cheating in the marketplace. Gershclager argues that the standard view in economic theory is that competitive markets will punish those that cheat because honest traders will out the dishonest ones and drive them from the marketplace. However, recent events related to the burst of the "new economy" bubble in 2001 such as the scandals at Enron, Tyco, and Worldcom call into question the adequacy of the above description. The essays here view key economic concepts from a variety of economic frameworks (game theory, new institutional economics, new classical macroeconomics, anthropological economics) through the lens of deception to see how well each view can accommodate this prevalent phenomena. Gerschlager claims that the upshot is that deception, including self-deception, if taken seriously may force economists to revise basic economic concepts such as rationality and self-interest.