Dealing with uncertainty: evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises

The recent worldwide macroeconomic crisis reopened old questions about how agents define their economic plans and expectations. Debt crises disappoint previous anticipations and, by their very nature, they lead to deep revisions of beliefs about the functioning of the economic system. This crucial e...

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Autores principales: Crespo, Ricardo, Heymann, Daniel, Schiaffino, Pablo
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Publicado: Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política (IIEP UBA-CONICET) 2022
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Acceso en línea:https://ojs.economicas.uba.ar/DT-IIEP/article/view/2520
https://repositoriouba.sisbi.uba.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=dociiep&d=2520_oai
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spelling I28-R145-2520_oai2026-02-09 Crespo, Ricardo Heymann, Daniel Schiaffino, Pablo 2022-12-02 The recent worldwide macroeconomic crisis reopened old questions about how agents define their economic plans and expectations. Debt crises disappoint previous anticipations and, by their very nature, they lead to deep revisions of beliefs about the functioning of the economic system. This crucial element of crises denies the standard rational expectations assumption (an ambiguous concept, also). The decision errors that result in crises do not necessarily derive from behavioural biases which make agents ignore prevalent views about economic prospects: often, those choices had been rationalized with reference to established conventional wisdom. Thus, understanding such socially relevant events requires addressing the concrete ways in which agents generate practical decision scenarios in changing environments, and how those interact with the modes of analysis accepted at their times. A revision of Keynes ́ work on uncertainty can help in this respect. In this paper we analyse the crucial informational elements of macro crises, we discuss weaknesses of the standard modes of argument which try to accommodate critical phenomena into the rational expectations framework, and we comment on ways to move ahead, with reference to Keynes ́s contributions.   La reciente crisis macroeconómica internacional ha reabierto preguntas tradicionales sobre cómo se formulan los planes y expectativas de los actores económicos. Las crisis de deuda frustran anticipaciones previas y, por su naturaleza, suelen inducir sustanciales revisiones de creencias sobre cómo funciona la economía. Este elemento central de las crisis niega validez a la hipótesis de expectativas racionales (un concepto ambiguo, por otra parte). Los errores de decisión que llevan a las crisis no necesariamente derivan de sesgos de conducta que hacen a los agentes ignorar las indicaciones del análisis económico: a menudo esas decisiones son compatibles con el sentido común de la época, y se racionalizan apoyándose en influyentes argumentos analíticos. El estudio de esos relevantes procesos sociales requiere considerar las formas concretas en que los agentes generan escenarios de decisión a efectos prácticos, y cómo esos se vinculan con los modos de análisis aceptados en su momento. En este trabajo se discuten los elementos informacionales de las crisis de deuda, se comentan las limitaciones de los esquemas usuales que buscan conciliar a los fenómenos de crisis con la noción de expectativas racionales en alguna de sus formas, y se consideran alternativas para el tratamiento de las modalidades de formación de expectativas en esos contextos críticos, con referencia a las contribuciones de Keynes. application/pdf https://ojs.economicas.uba.ar/DT-IIEP/article/view/2520 eng Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política (IIEP UBA-CONICET) https://ojs.economicas.uba.ar/DT-IIEP/article/view/2520/3256 Documentos de trabajo del Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política; Núm. 8 (2015): Documento de trabajo del Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política UBA CONICET; 1-34 Working Papers series at Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política; No. 8 (2015): Working paper of Interdisciplinary Institute of Political Economy of Buenos Aires UBA CONICET; 1-34 2451-5728 Crisis macroeconómicas Promesas incumplidas Racionalidad de las expectativas Keynes sobre la incertidumbre Macroeconomic crises Broken promises Rationality of expectations Keynes on uncertainty Dealing with uncertainty: evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises Lidiando con la incertidumbre: creencias en evolución, racionalizaciones y los orígenes de las crisis económicas info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion https://repositoriouba.sisbi.uba.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=dociiep&d=2520_oai
institution Universidad de Buenos Aires
institution_str I-28
repository_str R-145
collection Repositorio Digital de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)
language Inglés
orig_language_str_mv eng
topic Crisis macroeconómicas
Promesas incumplidas
Racionalidad de las expectativas
Keynes sobre la incertidumbre
Macroeconomic crises
Broken promises
Rationality of expectations
Keynes on uncertainty
spellingShingle Crisis macroeconómicas
Promesas incumplidas
Racionalidad de las expectativas
Keynes sobre la incertidumbre
Macroeconomic crises
Broken promises
Rationality of expectations
Keynes on uncertainty
Crespo, Ricardo
Heymann, Daniel
Schiaffino, Pablo
Dealing with uncertainty: evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises
topic_facet Crisis macroeconómicas
Promesas incumplidas
Racionalidad de las expectativas
Keynes sobre la incertidumbre
Macroeconomic crises
Broken promises
Rationality of expectations
Keynes on uncertainty
description The recent worldwide macroeconomic crisis reopened old questions about how agents define their economic plans and expectations. Debt crises disappoint previous anticipations and, by their very nature, they lead to deep revisions of beliefs about the functioning of the economic system. This crucial element of crises denies the standard rational expectations assumption (an ambiguous concept, also). The decision errors that result in crises do not necessarily derive from behavioural biases which make agents ignore prevalent views about economic prospects: often, those choices had been rationalized with reference to established conventional wisdom. Thus, understanding such socially relevant events requires addressing the concrete ways in which agents generate practical decision scenarios in changing environments, and how those interact with the modes of analysis accepted at their times. A revision of Keynes ́ work on uncertainty can help in this respect. In this paper we analyse the crucial informational elements of macro crises, we discuss weaknesses of the standard modes of argument which try to accommodate critical phenomena into the rational expectations framework, and we comment on ways to move ahead, with reference to Keynes ́s contributions.  
format Artículo
publishedVersion
author Crespo, Ricardo
Heymann, Daniel
Schiaffino, Pablo
author_facet Crespo, Ricardo
Heymann, Daniel
Schiaffino, Pablo
author_sort Crespo, Ricardo
title Dealing with uncertainty: evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises
title_short Dealing with uncertainty: evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises
title_full Dealing with uncertainty: evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises
title_fullStr Dealing with uncertainty: evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises
title_full_unstemmed Dealing with uncertainty: evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises
title_sort dealing with uncertainty: evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises
publisher Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política (IIEP UBA-CONICET)
publishDate 2022
url https://ojs.economicas.uba.ar/DT-IIEP/article/view/2520
https://repositoriouba.sisbi.uba.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=dociiep&d=2520_oai
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