This book investigates how economic agents make decisions in novel environments where historical data and past experience provide no reliable guidance. Thomas J. Sargent, a prominent economist, utilizes the framework of bounded rationality to address the limitations of traditional rational expectations models. By synthesizing developments from statistics, econometrics, and artificial intelligence, the author constructs a methodology for modeling behavior in unprecedented economic scenarios, such as the transition of Eastern European economies.

Experts recognize this work as a significant contribution to the evolution of macroeconomic theory, particularly for its bridge between classical economics and computational intelligence. Readers frequently note the technical density of the prose, which assumes a strong background in econometrics and formal economic modeling.