Is Homo Economicus Performative? Evidence From a Beauty Contest Experiment With Mainstream and Non-Mainstream Academic Economists
Sokolov M. Libman A.
February 2026John Wiley and Sons Inc
Kyklos
2026#79Issue 138 - 52 pp.
Does studying mainstream microeconomics cause individuals to behave more like the textbook version of homo economicus? Most studies suggesting a positive answer have used student samples and focused on self-interested behaviors in collective dilemma situations. In our study, we conducted an online “beauty contest” experiment with a sample of 1019 academic economists in Russia. The Russian case is of particular interest in this context, as the countrys economic discipline is markedly divided between those who associate themselves with “Western” science—typically having received standard training in mainstream economics—and those who reject it in favor of a native intellectual tradition. The latter group usually openly denies the universal applicability of theories that describe economic life as an interaction between rational, self-interested agents. We leverage this division by examining variations in beauty contest game strategies within the group of academic economists rather than across disciplines, thereby reducing unobserved heterogeneity. We analyze whether those who embrace the international economic mainstream make choices closer to equilibrium compared to those who reject it and specifically describe homo economicus as an inadequate model of human behavior. The results show no statistical association: Economists who rely on theories assuming common knowledge of rationality did not expect more rational behavior from their colleagues.
academic economists , beauty contests , level-k reasoning , mainstream economics , performativity , sociology of economics
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Sociology and Anthropology Department, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
Osteuropa-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Sociology and Anthropology Department
Osteuropa-Institut
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026