ABSTRACT
Most economic analyses of decision making are based on data from experimental economics laboratories or on aggregate macro or micro data. In both types of cases what is reflected is the result of decision-making processes. Studies by economists based on interviews with or observations of decision makers that attempt to ferret out the reasoning underlying business decisions date back more than half a century, but there have been few of them. Several have been published since the late 1980s, however. Increasingly, these go beyond the use of systematic questionnaires aimed at establishing statistical tendencies and employ open-ended, in-depth exchanges aimed at better understanding decision-making processes. They have a number of objectives, but primarily they seek to draw attention to the most promising among the available hypotheses about decision making and, in a few cases, to suggest more realistic theories of economic behavior.
