George Katona
Encyclopedia
George Katona was a Hungarian-born American psychologist who was one of the first to advocate a rapprochement between economics and psychologists. Originally trained as a Gestalt psychologist
working on problems of learning and memory, during the Second World War he became involved in American government attempts to use psychology to combat war-induced inflation. This led him to consider the application of psychological principles to macroeconomics
, and he devised measures of consumer expectations that eventually became the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index
. Use of this index enabled him to predict the post-war boom in the United States at a time when conventional econometric
indicators were predicting a recession, a success which helped his fledgling index establish itself. Katona wrote numerous books and journal articles advocating the development of economic psychology. These general ideas were taken up more fully in Europe than in the United States, until the development, after his death, of modern behavioral economics.
Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a theory of mind and brain of the Berlin School; the operational principle of gestalt psychology is that the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies...
working on problems of learning and memory, during the Second World War he became involved in American government attempts to use psychology to combat war-induced inflation. This led him to consider the application of psychological principles to macroeconomics
Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of the whole economy. This includes a national, regional, or global economy...
, and he devised measures of consumer expectations that eventually became the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index
University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers is a consumer confidence index published monthly by the University of Michigan and Thomson Reuters. The index is normalized to have a value of 100 in December 1964...
. Use of this index enabled him to predict the post-war boom in the United States at a time when conventional econometric
Econometrics
Econometrics has been defined as "the application of mathematics and statistical methods to economic data" and described as the branch of economics "that aims to give empirical content to economic relations." More precisely, it is "the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena based on...
indicators were predicting a recession, a success which helped his fledgling index establish itself. Katona wrote numerous books and journal articles advocating the development of economic psychology. These general ideas were taken up more fully in Europe than in the United States, until the development, after his death, of modern behavioral economics.
Works
(this list is currently incomplete)- The powerful consumer
- Psychological economics (1975)
- A new economic era (with Burkhard Strumpel)