Why and How Humans Trade, Predict, Aggregate, and Innovate: An Economist’s Lessons on the Role of Human Behavior and Eco

Trading, forecasting, aggregating, and innovating (the Four) are key social interactions in human life at both the individual and aggregate levels. They are part of the human fabric because they stem from mankind’s peculiarities―heterogeneity, inclination to forecast, sociality, and inventiveness. But humans have multifaceted behavior, too. They are capable of having contradictory impulses towards one another, integrating and disintegrating as well as cooperating and dominating, and behaving prosocially and anti-socially. Hence, humans need to organize themselves in order to maintain, improve, and extend their social interactions as well as a safe and ordered life. Crucial intersections emerge naturally―the efficiency of humans’ way of tackling the Four is a joint product of economic systems, institutions, and behaviors.

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