In intro to microeconomics there's always an assumption

Drunk people are irrational in their economic choices

>>1928802
is this considered in the literature?

>>1928807
Not sure, I just know in one of my first microeconomics lessons an immediate example of when actors don't act rationally is when they are drunk. You would have to look into behavioral economics to find out more.

>>1928817
What this guy said.

Neoclassical economics deals with equations and numbers.

Behavioral economics deals with human beings and their inherent irrationality.

There are some expansions beyond such assumptions in more advanced courses, though they are hardly useful. The assumption of the rational consumer isn't that far fetched.

Could you give some examples of irrational behaviour you would like considered? It seems to be a drunk consumer behaves quite rationally. (that is to say, he adheres to the assumptions of a rational consumer quite well)

>>1928818
but is there a formalization of this irrationality into equations? like how in intro physics you learn newtons laws, but later QM and general relativity are formalized into equations

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>>1928824
Basically my old teacher posted this status, and my immediate thought was that it's way harder/requires more math to formalize irrationality, which is why they don't teach it in intro to econ, not because economists think everyone is rational.

>Does this assumption go away in more advanced courses?

Depends how progressive your department is. If it doesn't, abandon ship because the theory is toasted shit.

>>1928828

Very hard to do with equations, but complexity economics is basically about getting around this with computer models.

>>1928857
that doesn't make sense though? He wasn't arguing in his economics class that people always act rationally, he would be arguing economic concepts that assume rational actors

>>1928857

Your teacher is overreacting a little bit imo.
Classic microeconomics has only 3 assumptions that need to be satisfied for an actor be rational:

1. Consumer can make a choice between bundles
2. Consumer always knows his preference (or indifference)
3. Consumer that prefers A over B and B over C also prefers A over C

It's not far fetched at all and even 'irrational' behaviour will usually satisfy these assumptions quite well on the whole.

Behaviorial economics would be the subject to adress any deviation from these assumptions though. In fact it is the subject that gets the most attention by microeconomists these days, because classical microeconomics is pretty much 'done'.