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WELL-BEING AND NEUROECONOMICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2008

Julian C. Jamison
Julian C. Jamison*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
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Abstract

Neuroscience can contribute to economics by inspiring new models, helping to distinguish models that have similar implications for readily available data, and guiding interpretations of decision-making processes by policy-makers. However, there is an additional less straightforward role for it to play: augmenting, along with survey data and other non-revealed-preference sources, assessments of well-being. The need for such augmentation lies in the slightly bizarre stance taken by modern economic theory, namely that economics is concerned only with choices and not with welfare per se. It is shown that this is neither historical nor at all necessary, even within the standard paradigm. Although neuroscience is by no means a panacea for determining true utility, which ultimately remains a subjective concept, it provides a uniquely useful complementary dataset.

Type
Essay
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 24 , Issue 3: Neuroeconomics , November 2008 , pp. 407 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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