Micro Motivation and Macro Behavior Author: Thomas C. Schelling Publisher: China Renmin University Press

The theme of this book is about the relationship between individual motivations and behaviors (or micro-motivations) and the overall results (or macro-behaviors) they bring. It not only explores the surprising macro-results caused by individual behaviors, but also discusses the individual motivations or behaviors contained in the macro-results, and whether it is possible to infer micro-motivations from observed macro-behaviors. Professor Schelling uses familiar and easy-to-understand examples to illustrate what happens when the overall behavior is not just the simple accumulation of individual behaviors, why members of society turn a blind eye to the collective consequences of their individual actions, and why the attempt to deduce individual intentions from group phenomena is a kind of opportunistic behavior. In the book, he also established some models that are neither too difficult nor obvious, as well as some basic analysis systems, and applied these models and analysis systems to solve social segregation problems such as those caused by race, gender, age and income.

Thomas C. Schelling is the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and his doctorate in economics from Harvard University. His books include International Economics, The Strategy of Conflict, and Weapons and Their Effects. In 1977, he received the Frank E. Seidman Award for Outstanding Contributions to Political Economy and the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics.