The Carnegie School is a school of economic thought originally formed at the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA), the current Tepper School of Business, of Carnegie Institute of Technology, the current Carnegie Mellon University, especially during the 1950s to 1970s.
Faculty at the Graduate School of Industrial Administration are known for formulating two "seemingly incompatible"[1] concepts: bounded rationality and rational expectations. Bounded rationality was developed by Herbert A. Simon, along with James March, Richard Cyert and Oliver Williamson. Rational expectations were developed by John F. Muth and later translated into macroeconomic theory by Robert Lucas Jr., Thomas Sargent, Leonard Rapping, and others.[2]
Depending on author and context, the term "Carnegie School" can refer to either both branches or only the bounded rationality branch, sometimes with the qualifier "Carnegie School of organization theory". The commonality between both branches is the use of dynamic optimization and forecasting techniques derived from production theory, and the early use of computers to solve planning and optimization problems. Along with other, mostly Midwestern universities, the rational expectations branch is considered part of freshwater economics, while the bounded rationality branch has been credited with originating behavioral economics and economics of organization.[3][4]