The Global Homo Oeconomicus

Abstract

Most often, the Homo Oeconomicus of mainstream economic theories is placed in rather peculiar settings with assumptions and cet. par. conditions imitating specific economic environments. As a consequence,“Homo Oeconomicus” acts flawlessly and rationally within its predefined and well designed setting. But without a more global view it rarely resembles a human being.

Given this background, this paper then considers first an integration of the usually purely local theory of labour unions with the theory of international trade. Recent publications backed by actual developments on the security markets show that institutional characteristics of national labour markets may have surprising consequences for the economies of trading partners. Next, the paper will take up the issue of international environmental concerns. The interactions of unhibited market forces in international trade with market failure associated with environmental effcts illustrates the complexity of this area of economics. Both“case studies” demonstrate that a more“global” approach to economic theory allows insight, which cannotbe obtained from the theories of international trade and labour unions, and environmental economics alone.