Herbert Alexander Simon was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Chicago and later taught there. He later helped start the Carnegie-Mellon University's Graduate School of Industrial Administration, where he is currently a professor of psychology.. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1978 for his "pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations." He has made a name for himself in several different disciplines including psychology, political science, sociology and economics. In the area of economics, he gave us a new view of the decision-making process and economic man. Before his work, the mainstream assumption was "of economic man as a lightning-quick calculator of costs and benefits". Simon came along and proposed "people's rationality as 'bounded'." The reason being the cost or non-existance of information about alternatives. Thus, "Instead of maximizing their utility...they satisfice." Simon extended this view to the level of firms.
Works by Herbert Alexander Simon :
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