The problem with economics, however, is that while it’s got theories, they are, by and large, not theories about humans.
To be more precise, economics does seem to have a lot of useful and powerfully predictive theories about groups of humans, but not so much about individuals.
There is a ton of variation in how any given person might act in a certain situation, but when you consider the economy as a whole (as in macroeconomics), the financial markets (as in… financial economics), or even just the market for a single good (as in microeconomics), the noise mostly cancels out and the overall effect can usually be modeled accurately and successfully by considering idealized notions such as purely utility-maximizing self-interested consumers.
But if you try to deeply study a single mind, you no longer benefit from this concentration of measure and your 1st order approximation will often be inaccurate and miscalibrated.
To be more precise, economics does seem to have a lot of useful and powerfully predictive theories about groups of humans, but not so much about individuals.
There is a ton of variation in how any given person might act in a certain situation, but when you consider the economy as a whole (as in macroeconomics), the financial markets (as in… financial economics), or even just the market for a single good (as in microeconomics), the noise mostly cancels out and the overall effect can usually be modeled accurately and successfully by considering idealized notions such as purely utility-maximizing self-interested consumers.
But if you try to deeply study a single mind, you no longer benefit from this concentration of measure and your 1st order approximation will often be inaccurate and miscalibrated.