Many experiments show that consumers consider relative price differences even when only absolute price differences are relevant from an economic perspective, a phenomenon that was denoted "relative thinking." These experiments, however, were conducted using hypothetical questions. To test...

This paper asks whether neuroeconomics will make instrumental use of neuroscience to adjudicate existing disputes in economics or be more seriously informed by neuroscience in ways that might transform economics. The paper pursues the question by asking how neuroscience constructs an...

This study analyzes leading research in behavioral economics to see whether it contains advocacy of paternalism and whether it addresses the potential cognitive limitations and biases of the policymakers who are going to implement paternalist policies. The findings reveal that 20.7% of the...

Risky health behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, drug use, unprotected sex, and poor diets and sedentary lifestyles (leading to obesity) are a major source of preventable deaths. This chapter overviews the theoretical frameworks for, and empirical evidence on, the economics of risky...

Institutional and organizational variety is increasingly characterising advanced economic systems. While traditional economic theories have focussed almost exclusively on profit-maximizing (i.e. for-profit) enterprises and on publicly-owned organizations, the increasing relevance of non-profit...

The paper discusses the concept of an economic man in economics and management. The concept of “homo oeconomicus” assumes the full rational behaviour of a deciding man and was applied in classical and neoclassical theories. Based on resent findings of the neuronal, cognitive and behavioural...

The paper starts with a discussion of the different ways to understand the neuroeconomic research program. It argues for multilevel connections between different kinds of models (logical, behavioral, and neural). Then, it surveys the various contributions of this neuroeconomic approach to three...

The paper seeks to recast the goal of nudge policy from a goal of achieving a specific result determined by government or by behavioral economists to a goal of giving individuals as much power as is practical to decide the choice architecture they face. We call a nudge with such a giving...

For many decades over the 20th Century, the mainstream of economics adopted a normative and axiomatic theory of individual behavior in which maximizing procedures were carried out by rationally unbounded agents. This status has been challenged on many grounds and alternative views from fields...