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2026
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19439638 |
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| author | Beier, Gregory Caldwell |
| author_facet | Beier, Gregory Caldwell |
| contents | <p>---<br>PRIORITY FILING - INITIAL DRAFT<br>A fully revised and formatted version will follow.<br>---</p> <p>**The Economics of Judgment**</p> <p>**Why Human Assessment Is an Unlimited Resource the Price System Throws Away**</p> <p>Gregory Caldwell Beier<br>Susarb LLC, Cambridge, Massachusetts<br>March 19, 2026</p> <p>From the Prolegomena to the Unification of Economics, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics by Gregory Caldwell Beier (forthcoming 2026).</p> <p>© 2026 Gregory Caldwell Beier. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.</p> <p>**Abstract**</p> <p>Every economic transaction is preceded by judgment. The buyer assessed value, weighed alternatives, considered risks, and formed an expectation about future states of the world. The seller did the same from a different vantage point. These judgments - often representing years of accumulated domain expertise applied to specific constraint environments - are the cognitive inputs to the transaction. The price retains none of them. The scalar that clears the market carries the intersection of willingness to pay and willingness to accept, compressing away the analytical reasoning that produced both. This paper argues that human judgment is the most abundant and most wasted resource in the global economy. It is present in every transaction, captured by no existing mechanism, and recoverable through the Disclosure Incentive (Beier, 2026b). The analogy to Kary Mullis's polymerase chain reaction is structural: before PCR, DNA was present in every biological sample but undetectable at useful concentrations. PCR did not create new DNA - it amplified what was already there. The Disclosure Incentive does not create new judgment - it preserves, structures, scores, and amplifies the judgment that economic agents already produce in the course of their ordinary activities but that the price system discards. The economics of judgment are the economics of a resource whose effective supply is zero not because the resource does not exist but because no mechanism has captured it. Tetlock's (2005) research program confirmed that judgment quality varies enormously and is measurable. Kahneman and Tversky's research program documented the systematic biases that degrade it. The missing piece was a mechanism that captures judgment at scale, scores it against outcomes, and feeds the scores back to improve the judgment itself. The Disclosure Incentive provides that mechanism. The economic value of the captured judgment is the difference between allocation decisions made on compressed price signals and allocation decisions made on the richer information environment that preserved judgment creates.</p> <p>**Keywords:** judgment, bounded rationality, expertise, information architecture, price compression, amplification, calibration, disclosure, track record capital</p> <p>**JEL Codes:** D82, D83, D91, J24, G41</p> |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_19439638 |
| institution | Zenodo |
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| publishDate | 2026 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
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| spellingShingle | The Economics of Judgment Beier, Gregory Caldwell <p>---<br>PRIORITY FILING - INITIAL DRAFT<br>A fully revised and formatted version will follow.<br>---</p> <p>**The Economics of Judgment**</p> <p>**Why Human Assessment Is an Unlimited Resource the Price System Throws Away**</p> <p>Gregory Caldwell Beier<br>Susarb LLC, Cambridge, Massachusetts<br>March 19, 2026</p> <p>From the Prolegomena to the Unification of Economics, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics by Gregory Caldwell Beier (forthcoming 2026).</p> <p>© 2026 Gregory Caldwell Beier. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.</p> <p>**Abstract**</p> <p>Every economic transaction is preceded by judgment. The buyer assessed value, weighed alternatives, considered risks, and formed an expectation about future states of the world. The seller did the same from a different vantage point. These judgments - often representing years of accumulated domain expertise applied to specific constraint environments - are the cognitive inputs to the transaction. The price retains none of them. The scalar that clears the market carries the intersection of willingness to pay and willingness to accept, compressing away the analytical reasoning that produced both. This paper argues that human judgment is the most abundant and most wasted resource in the global economy. It is present in every transaction, captured by no existing mechanism, and recoverable through the Disclosure Incentive (Beier, 2026b). The analogy to Kary Mullis's polymerase chain reaction is structural: before PCR, DNA was present in every biological sample but undetectable at useful concentrations. PCR did not create new DNA - it amplified what was already there. The Disclosure Incentive does not create new judgment - it preserves, structures, scores, and amplifies the judgment that economic agents already produce in the course of their ordinary activities but that the price system discards. The economics of judgment are the economics of a resource whose effective supply is zero not because the resource does not exist but because no mechanism has captured it. Tetlock's (2005) research program confirmed that judgment quality varies enormously and is measurable. Kahneman and Tversky's research program documented the systematic biases that degrade it. The missing piece was a mechanism that captures judgment at scale, scores it against outcomes, and feeds the scores back to improve the judgment itself. The Disclosure Incentive provides that mechanism. The economic value of the captured judgment is the difference between allocation decisions made on compressed price signals and allocation decisions made on the richer information environment that preserved judgment creates.</p> <p>**Keywords:** judgment, bounded rationality, expertise, information architecture, price compression, amplification, calibration, disclosure, track record capital</p> <p>**JEL Codes:** D82, D83, D91, J24, G41</p> |
| title | The Economics of Judgment |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19439638 |