Economist gets a lot of envy from psychologist from being able to publish papers about mundane psychological topics. Like creating a mathematical model of the failure to delay gratification and accounting for the costs of that. Behavioural economics seem a bit more like trying to create mathematical descriptions for common sense.
Of course this is possible because economics have made assumptions about humans that were wholly our of touch with reality for models that worked. At least for many decades, they kind of worked without too much fuss.
But we’ve built worlds that we are not really psychologically evolved to deal with and as a result, the deviation from the assumptions of the rational man became more and more significant. For one, the complexity of the computations needed in the modern world to make the best decision have really made it harder to assume rationality. Making decision across 3 choices is different from making it across “n” choices.
There are dimensions of scarcity in the real world economics failed to capture: computation/calculation, environmental limits and parameters, human’s limits on our mental wellness. Let’s look at economics with more humanity, shall we?