Robert Sugden (economist)


Robert Sugden, FBA is an English author in the area of cognitive and behavioural economics. Professor Sugden’s research combines game theory with moral and political philosophy. He is associated with the classical-liberal tradition of Hume, Mill, and Hayek.

Theory

In his most cited work, Sugden explored how conventions of property, mutual aid, and voluntary supply of public goods can evolve spontaneously out of the interactions of self-interested individuals and can become moral norms.
Sugden investigated a number of violations of the von Neumann and Morgenstern's expected utility axioms, and developed regret theory as an alternative with Graham Loomes. In support of this work, he developed a number of experimental methods to test theories of decision under risk.
His work also deals with economic methods, in which he argues that economic models are not abstractions from, or simplifications of, the real world, but rather descriptions of imaginary worlds whose validity can only be inferred by how reasonable their predictions are.

Awards and fellowships