If you simply announce that things are irrational, then that alone doesn't get you very far. You have to replace rational agents with some concrete notion of what it means to be irrational.

Early on, in discussions of financial oversight, people would say, 'Well, this is a very complicated problem, therefore it requires a complicated solution.' And at that step, I would say, 'Well, wait a minute. Just because it's a complicated problem doesn't mean the best course of action immediately is one that's complicated.'

I view the work I've done related to statistics and economics as, roughly speaking, how to do something without having to do everything.

Lars Peter Hansen Quotes