Omerod: "Butterfly Economics"

Paul Omerod (2001): Butterfly Economics: A New General Theory of Social and Economic Behavior. Philadelphia, PA: Basic Books.
Paul Ormerod, author of The Death of Economics (1994), offers a different idea: "In the current state of scientific knowledge, it is simply not possible to carry out forecasts which are systematically accurate over a period of time." The title Butterfly Economics comes from the idea in chaos theory that a butterfly flapping its wings here could cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. It's not that chaos is guaranteed in economics; it's just that we never know when it'll occur, or what will cause it. "Small changes can have big consequences, and vice versa," Ormerod notes. His arguments range far afield. He talks about crime and family structure, biology, fashion, and many other topics seemingly unrelated to economics. But it comes down to this: No matter how you analyze it, human behavior is surprisingly random. And no economic model can account for all of it at any given time.
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