INDUCTIVE REASONING AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR

20 years have passed since Brian Arthur's "Inductive Reasoning and Bounded Rationality" was published. However, the issues raised by B. Arthur have not lost their relevance and importance. In the present paper various approaches to economic behavior in modern economic theory are outlined, in the context of perfect - deductive - rationality and inductive reasoning. To illustrate the importance of inductive reasoning, in addition to a bar problem the effect of traffic jams is considered. It is emphasized that the studies of economic behavior in complex adaptive systems should take into account the fact that regularity of social interactions inevitably generates experience that is to be reflected in actors' understanding the essence of social interactions. This experience forms the behavioral patterns that are used by the actors to structure the social reality. To ensure the regularity of structured social interactions, embedded evolutionary mechanisms must exist, to "regulate" the incidence of relevant and irrelevant behavior models and, consequently, of local rules, ethical (moral) norms and institutions.