Brain Waves

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05/08/03--19:48: The Future is Emotional Economics (chan 1318986)

As the Economist reports, behavioral economics in on the rise.  After almost a century of mathematical obsession, economists have finally started to accept their emotional roots.  Last year, Daniel Kahneman and Vernon Smith received the Nobel Prize in economics for revealing that...


05/21/03--02:35: Why Neuroeconomics Rocks (chan 1318986)

Standard economic theories rely on an implicit assumption that controlled, cognitive processes are the key to economic decision making. Yet.. We fear terrorism, when red meat poses a much greater risk of mortality. And, when it comes to asking someone...


06/17/03--12:22: Economics from the Neurons Up (chan 1318986)

Today's NYTimes piece, Brain Experts Now Follow the Money, highlights the growing enthusiasm for the emerging discipline of neuroeconomics.  So why is neuroeconomics so exciting? Economics, at its core, sees human behavior as the outcome of a rational process of decision-making, wherein...


08/11/03--06:05: The Neurobiology of Trust (chan 1318986)

By Paul Zak Trust pervades nearly every aspect of our daily lives, yet the neurobiological mechanisms that permit human beings to trust each are not understood.  In this research we find that when someone observes that another person trusts them,...


08/13/03--11:10: Autism, Cooperation and Economics (chan 1318986)

By Paul Zak Elisabeth Hill and David Sally of University College London have recently completed a very interesting paper using the neuroeconomic method (real social interactions with payoffs) examining cooperation and fairness in adults and children with autistic spectrum disorder...


10/27/03--19:03: Emotional Transaction Costs (chan 1318986)

BusinessPundit, recently highlighted in Business and the Tragic View of Human Nature that: "The field of management has a long way to go...a better understanding of human nature (via neuroscience) will allow us to better target management tactics for specific...


06/24/04--12:17: Neuroeconomists Match Valuation and Behavior in the Brain (chan 1318986)

"Psychologists and economists have long appreciated the contribution of reward history and expectation to decision-making," begins a brilliant research article in this week's Science. In "matching behavior and the representation of value in the parietal cortex," Stanford University researchers used...


08/26/04--17:26: Neuroeconomics 2004 conference (chan 1318986)

The intersection of economics and neuroscience offers tantalizing potential for the advancement of both disciplines as well as being a new field of study in its own right: Neuroeconomics (click for previous neuroeconomics posts on Brain Waves) The Human Neuroimaging...


12/23/04--17:20: The King of Trust: Paul Zak (part 1) (chan 1318986)

This is the first of a three part interview with neuroeconomist Paul Zak. By Zack Lynch The king of trust, Paul Zak, directs the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles, where for the past four...


04/26/06--13:36: Tyler Cowan on Neuroeconomics and iTunes (chan 1318986)

For those of you who missed Tyler Cowan's article in the NYTimes last week, here is a bit he shares on his group blog Marginal Revolution (visit MR to access the full article): "Not all of neuro-economics uses brain scans....


08/08/06--09:43: Trust, Happiness and Societal Development (chan 1318986)

A common critique of laboratory experiments is that they don't scale up to the "real world". However, in a new paper from neuroeconomist Paul Zak and Ahlam Fakhar shows that their work work on oxytocin does not face this critique....


11/16/06--17:16: Milton Friedman Nobel Economist Passes On at 94 (chan 1318986)

Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who played a key role in the intellectual resurgence of capitalism and the global shift to free-market economics in the final third of the 20th century, died today at a San Francisco hospital. He...


06/18/07--17:06: Why Giving Feels Good - Your Charitable Brain (chan 1318986)

That good feeling you get by writing a check to your favorite charity could be your brain patting itself on the back, writes Robert Mitchum of the Chicago Tribune while reporting on a recent study published in the journal Science....


05/29/08--11:23: Wall Street Journal Goes with Neuroeconomics-focused Personal Finance Columnist (chan 1318986)

The Wall Street Journal hired Jason Zweig, a senior writer and columnist for Money magazine, to be its new personal finance columnist. Zweig is also currently a guest columnist for Time magazine, and he was the mutual funds editor for...


11/18/11--01:53: New Neuroeconomics eJournal (chan 1318986)

A new Economics Research Network (ERN) eJournal in Neuroeconomics has been launched. The editors include: Kevin A. McCabe, George Mason University - Center for the Study of Neuroeconomics, George Mason University and Michael C. Jensen, Harvard Business School, The...