From Economic Behaviour to Behavioural Economics

Mainstream economics postulates the existence of an economic man endowed with rational and self-interested behaviour. The aim of this article is to analyze the relevance of this attributes, since the economic behaviour is, both, a form of human action and the object of the study of economics. Moreover, we go further with some particular objectives and examine the role of behavioural economics and the way in which it relates to the traditional model. The current events on the world stage have generated heated debates in the academic world with respect to the adequacy of the analysis of the economic models to reality. Thus, the 2007 financial crisis highlighted some lacks of the neoclassical model, which still dominates the economic analysis, and sent to a reconsideration of its foundations. We found out that, through a multidisciplinary approach, behavioural economics attempts to answer many of these shortcomings, by considering a broader analysis in the study of economic phenomena. Furthermore, the article shows how this field of study can increase the explanatory power of economics by providing it a more realistic psychological basis, given that the human behaviour is not only the subject of economics, but also of psychology and of the social sciences as a whole.