The economic agent as rule maker and rule user: <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">Homo Sapiens Oeconomicus

The paper discusses the micro foundations of evolutionary economics, introducing a unified concept of the economic agent as a rule maker and rule user. Based on recent findings of the neuronal, cognitive and behavioral sciences, Homo Sapiens Oeconomicus emerges as an alternative to Homo Oeconomicus. A taxonomy of rules distinguishing between cognitive, behavioral and blueprint rules and a set of theoretical propositions related to the structure and evolution of those rules are suggested. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2004