N. Emrah Aydınonat

Aydinonat, N. Emrah, (2006) “Is the Invisible Hand un−Smithian? A Comment on Rothschild,” Economics Bulletin, Vol. 2 no. 2 pp. 1-9.

Rothschild (2001) argues that the invisible hand refers to blind individuals and presume privileged knowledge on the part of the social scientist. For this reason, she takes it that the invisible hand is, in fact, an un−Smithian concept and that Smith was making an ironical joke. In this brief comment, I argue that the invisible hand does not imply blind and futile individuals or privileged knowledge and it cannot be argued that it is an un−Smithian concept on these grounds. Briefly, it is argued here that although it may be true that Smith used the invisible hand somewhat ironically, this does not imply that it is un−Smithian.

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Aydinonat, N. Emrah, (2005) “An interview with Thomas C. Schelling: Interpretation of game theory and the checkerboard model,” Economics Bulletin, Vol. 2 no. 2 pp. 1-7.
This note is mainly based on a short interview with Thomas C. Schelling (TCS), who shared the Nobel Prize with Robert J. Aumann in 2005. The interview took place on 06.03.2001 at University of Maryland, College Park, USA. It consists of two parts. The first part is about his interpretation of game theory, particularly about the use of game-theoretic models in explaining the origin and maintenance of conventions, and norms. The second part is on the origin of Schelling’s influential checkerboard model of residential segregation, particularly about his approach to modeling social phenomena exemplified by this model. The note ends with some concluding remarks.

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