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Experimental results are reported from Ultimatum and Public Goods Games performed among the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon, the Mapuche and Huinca of southern Chile, and US control groups in Los Angeles and Ann Arbor (Michigan). The chapter begins with a brief ethno‐historical sketch of the Machiguenga, Mapuche, and Huinca, then the Ultimatum Game methodologies used are sketched and the results presented. Next, the Public Goods Game methodologies used are described, and those results presented – first for the Machiguenga/American comparison and then for the Mapuche/Huinca experiment. Three findings are emphasized: first, results from both the Ultimatum (bargaining) and Public Goods Games indicate much greater between‐group variation than previous work has suggested; second, if individual economic decisions vary as a consequence of differences in individuals’ circumstances, then variables such as wealth, household size, age, and sex should provide some explanatory power, but in fact individual‐level economic and demographic variables do not account for much, if any, of the variation found; and finally, despite the failure of individual‐level variables to explain variation, the results seem to reflect group‐level differences in the economic life of these groups, as captured in numerous ethnographic accounts. Some theoretical and methodological points related to the findings conclude the chapter.

We make a variety of decisions throughout our lives. Some decisions involve outcomes whose values can be readily compared, especially when those outcomes are simple, immediate, and familiar. Other decisions involve imperfect knowledge about their potential consequences. Understanding the choice process when consequences are uncertain — often called the study of decision making under risk — remains a key goal of behavioural economics, cognitive psychology, and now neuroscience. An ongoing challenge, however, lies in the substantial individual differences in how people approach risky decisions. Using a novel choice paradigm, this chapter demonstrates that people vary in whether they adopt compensatory rules (i.e., tradeoffs between decision variables) or non-compensatory rules (i.e., a simplification of the choice problem) in economic decision making. The chapter shows that distinct neural mechanisms support variability in choices and variability in strategic preferences. Specifically, compensatory choices are associated with activation in the anterior insula and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, while non-compensatory choices are associated with increased activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex. The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex shaped decision making at a strategic level through its functional connectivity with these regions. Individual-difference analyses are a key direction through which neuroscience can influence models of choice behaviour.

This chapter explains the approach of the ECJ to the use of human rights principles in the application and interpretation of economic Community law. This question arises in three different constellations: when the Court is called to examine economic regulation by the European Union legislator in the light of fundamental rights; when the Court is called to examine economic regulation by the member states in the light of fundamental rights; and when the Court examines private interference with economic activities in the light of fundamental rights. The chapter examines these three constellations in turn, giving each time one or more examples of how the ECJ operates. The latter two situations are those that are most directly related to the core theme of the volume, namely human rights issues arising in investment disputes.

A number of scholars argue that human and animal decision making, at least to the extent that it is driven by representational mental states, should be seen to be the result of the application of a vast array of highly specialized decision rules. By contrast, other scholars argue that we should see human and animal representational decision making as the result of the application of a handful general principles—such as expected utility maximization—to a number of specific instances. This chapter shows that, using the results of chapters 5 and 6, it becomes possible to move this dispute forwards: the account of the evolution of conative representational decision making defended in chapter 6 together with the account of the evolution of cognitive representational decision making defended in chapter 5, makes clear that both sides of this dispute contain important insights, and that it is possible to put this entire dispute on a clearer and more precise foundation. Specifically, I show that differentially general decision rules are differentially adaptive in different circumstances: certain particular circumstances favor specialized decision making, and certain other circumstances favor more generalist decision making.

This chapter starts by reflecting on the notion of “value” in economics. It then describes how economic decision-making models are framed and examines their moral dimension. The foundations of traditional economic decision-making models contrast with the emphasis of psychological research on the role of deontological considerations in decision-making. The focus is on a specific deontological value, so called “protected values.” The chapter describes the main characteristics of individuals endowed with protected values in particular when these values focus on honesty, and reviews experimental evidence on the role of protected values for honesty in economic decision-making. Finally, some speculative thoughts are offered on the relevance of research on moral values for business policies, incentive design, and regulation. Also discussed are some open research questions regarding the role of moral values in economic decision-making.

This chapter illustrates the suppression and reassertion of national values in socialist Romania. The Romania of the late 1970s and 1980s provides a classic example of a breed that was becoming rare during those years: a neo-Stalinist, highly centralized command economy conforming well to the bureaucratic allocative model. Almost none of the expanded market forces, decentralized economic decision making, or political pluralism emerging in Hungary, Poland, or the Soviet Union graced the Romanian landscape. The state persecuted independent entrepreneurship, increasingly raided peasants' “private” plots, militarized many enterprises so as to check sliding output, placed economic contracts under supervision by the General Prosecutor's Office, and chipped away at all enterprises' funds for paying workers. In addition to its unusually high centralization, Romania was unusual within the bloc for its mode of control. In its early days the Romanian regime controlled its population chiefly by force, which was later relaxed and briefly supplemented in the 1960s with a few economic incentives.

Ben Bernanke’s opening remarks reflect on the importance of measurement in economic decision-making. The ultimate purpose of economics is to promote wellbeing, and variables in economic policy making must therefore include determinants of wellbeing, including those that go beyond aggregate statistics which can obscure individual experiences. Increasing the attention paid to microeconomic data could better capture the diversity of experience across households and firms. The measurement of life satisfaction or wellbeing as a direction for economic policy research has generated alternative measures of well-being that are frequently survey-based and incorporate elements such as psychological wellness, the level of education, physical health and safety, community vitality and the strength of family and social ties, and time spent in leisure activities.

This chapter combines the political economy of the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) social security systems and the political economy of migration to examine the interplay of migration and intergenerational distribution policy. The analysis is based on interactions between political and economic decisions under an analytical framework. To simplify matters, the analysis assumes that factor prices are externally fixed. It reveals that factor prices can rise as an equilibrium outcome through international capital movement and constant returns-to-scale production technology. The analysis assumes that migrants contribute to or benefit from such a social security system in the same manner as the native-born workforce, and also assumes that the social security system is the PAYG type, where benefits are equal to contributions.

Research on trust has been one of the most fertile areas over the past decade. It has involved contributions not only from all social science but also from biology and neuroscience. In this chapter I will focus on the economics approach to trust. Despite the pervasive role trust plays in contracting, economists have not been the first to notice the key role of trust for the functioning of an economy. But they have been the first to show its empirical importance for explaining the macroeconomic differences in aggregate performance across countries and communities. In this essay we focus on the microeconomics of trust and elucidate how is trust formed and evolves at the individual level and how it affects individual economic decisions and performance.

This chapter assesses how the pervasive influence of the adolescent character provides insight into the workings of another sector of modern life relevant to us all: the economy. Less of a collective undertaking than politics, economic activity is guided primarily by individual decisions and actions in the free market system; so many of the relevant effects are seen first and foremost at the individual level. But these individual effects can multiply and cascade to generate patterns that do have important consequences for the general economic and social fabric. Emotions, misperceptions, intangible costs and benefits, influenced in many instances by underlying character traits, lead people to act in ways that the traditional models do not anticipate. As in other fields, it is only recently that some researchers have started to link personality to economic behavior in interesting and enlightening ways to dig deeper into what makes people tick when it comes to economic decision making and activity. When we combine some of these findings with ideas about the changing contours of character in the adolescent society, we can develop new understandings of some of the more salient economic trends of the past number of years.

This chapter explains the current environmental challenges to carbon emissions. Such emissions have resulted in drastic climatic changes leading to terrible consequences. World leaders confronted climate change in the early 1990s, and two decades ago signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Despite innumerable conferences, summits, proclamations, agreements, and policy interventions, nothing much has so far been achieved, and indeed some of the interventions may have made things worse. Understanding why climate change matters, what causes it, who is responsible, and why so little progress has been made is a necessary exercise because it reveals the underlying raw nature of the problems faced in the early twenty-first century. The problem of carbon emissions will not get addressed unless carbon is integrated directly into economies and economic decision-making.

The motivation for an imaging study should be better than simply “little is known about the neural basis of X.” As in other areas of science, interest should be in phenomena that are in need of explanation. These could concern normal cognition, for example that it is difficult to carry out two tasks at the same time; or abnormal cognition, for example that there are patients who hear voices. Answering questions such as these can require a combination of methods, which can be best achieved by collaboration between scientists who are experts in different methods. With the maturation of brain imaging, users should think of themselves not as “imagers” but as neuroscientists.

This chapter examines how sex ratios—a central concept in evolution—influence human behavior ranging from economic decisions to career choices. Drawing on Robert Cialdini's principles of influence, it considers how behavior is influenced when there is a “scarcity” of men or women. It also discusses the relationship between psychology and physiology, with emphasis on possible hormonal mechanisms that might regulate behaviors governed by sex ratio differences. Finally, it explores the implications of the scarcity of men and women for social influence.

In chapter 10, Seth Berkley assesses the effectiveness of Gavi in substantially declining rates of diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus; facilitating the development of an inexpensive vaccine for meningitis A; expanding access to human papillomavirus vaccine; facilitating the transition of recipient countries to donor countries; and providing an economic and decision-making model that brings together the entire field of vaccinology. The chapter broadens the scope through which the social impact of vaccines is viewed to include the full range of public health threats vaccines combat, the substantial contribution vaccines play in alleviating the most severe forms of poverty around the world, and the role of routine immunization programs as the foundation of national primary healthcare and public health systems. The chapter also outlines specific development, delivery, and financing mechanisms that may facilitate the achievement of access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries.