Read: Micromotives and Macrobehavior

23. April 2009 - 18:59

I have to admit that I am disappointed by Thomas Schelling’s certainly influential Micromotives and Macrobehavior. It is well written, yes. It, sure enough, is educating and illuminating. Nevertheless, it lacks depth. I expected more.

The main message is that seemingly innocent individual preferences, the unobserved micromotives, may lead to surprising and drastic consequences in the aggregate, the observed macrobehavior. He illustrates this by simple thought experiments, graphics and very little mathematical / logical reasoning; game theory, actually. His message is spread over 200+ pages and still I feel like it lacks depth. He fails to offer any remedies while pointing to possible moral dilemma. At the end, there are more questions than answers.

I was much more enjoying Axelrod’s Evolution of Cooperation.

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