ABSTRACT
In the outpouring of appreciation that followed Herbert Simon’s death on 9 February 2001, there has been almost complete agreement that he was a towering figure in many twentieth-century developments in science, and his work crossed disciplinary boundaries.1 Thus judgement seems to be based on the fact that he significantly shaped the disciplines in which he worked; pioneered developments such as artificial intelligence and behavioural economics; and brought ideas such as satisficing and bounded rationality to the limelight. People want to give credit where credit is due. Unfortunately, the effect of viewing the man through the lens of subsequent development of the fields is a picture of him that is incomplete and distorted. For instance, modern research in behavioural economics sometimes credits Simon for introducing ‘limited rationality’, while ignoring most of his other insights, such as satisficing, altruism, and organizational identification (Rabin 1998, 2002; Mullainathan and Thaler 2000). Similarly, while much of today’s work in organizational economics employ terms such as incomplete contracts and bounded rationality, it really is only the work of Oliver Williamson, Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter which comes close to the heart of the ideas Simon aspired to.2 Finally, while game theorists and macro theorists seemingly have taken up the challenge of building bounded rationality into their theories, their work is far from always in the spirit of what Simon wanted.3
