The Mathematical Logic of Creative Economics

Advances in economics result from new ideas, but economists have no formal tools to generate such ideas. Yet logical processes for idea generation exist and can be applied to economic theorising. If an economic problem is reframed as a proof problem, economists can use familiar logical tools to channel their creative thinking and so advance economic theory. This paper develops a formal and reproducible logical method for generating economic ideas using the time-inconsistency problem and Rogoff’s (1985) original contribution as a case study.