Learning in economic theory: a taxonomy with an application to expectations formation

A crucial aspect of the psychology of economic agents is learning. In economic theory learning behavior of human beings occurs, in general, in a rather primitive fashion. Insofar as agents' learning behavior is introduced in formal economic models, it shows up in the form of the adaptation of the values of parameters or variables. The structure of the model employed is considered to be given. In this article a taxonomy of learning is presented, in which the adaptation of parameter and variable values is just one of the manifestations of actual learning behavior of human beings in an economic world. The argument is illustrated with the help of economic theories of expectations formation.