The Science of Economic Bubbles and Busts
From Scientific American Magazine , June 22, 2009:
The Science of Economic Bubbles and Busts
The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has prompted a reassessment of how financial markets work and how people make decisions about money
Neuroeconomics
Neuroeconomics
From The Economist print edition
A new school of economists is controversially turning to neuroscience to improve the dismal science
Dumb tricks your mind plays
Blame it on evolution — we’re not perfect! Some quotes from the article:
“Our brains have evolved to live in the moment…”
“Most pleasure springs from the ancestral, reflexive system…”
“Thinking of the brain’s pleasure system as a kluge…”
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A new book argues that evolution is far from perfect: What makes the human brain wonderful also makes it an error-prone mess
Irrational about money
Michael Shermer’s blog about money (“Why People Believe Weird Things About Money“) describes how people would choose less money over more as long as the less money is more than someone else would get. The article also describes how this “irrational” trait has been observed in monkeys too, suggesting that it is a behaviour that evolved pre-humans. A very worthwhile read.
I found one of the responses (reproduced below) questioning the “irrational” label of this trait, highly entertaining:
Monkey, Business
Book review from the New York Times — sounds interesting.
MONKEY, BUSINESS
FOR A BETTER ECONOMY, WE NEED TO FIGHT OUR BETTER INSTINCTS
Giving it away to “get some”
Charity, like conspicuous consumption, is about attracting the opposite sex. I always thought that being polite, like when gentlemen open doors for ladies, serves the same purpose — “I can afford to help you and STILL be highly successful!”
Here is the story:
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9581656
Testosterone driving financial decisions
More on this later on when I have time to comment:
Neuroscience
Money isn’t everything
Jul 5th 2007
From The Economist print edition
Men with a lot of testosterone make curious economic choices
CEO vs. Lizard
I found this article very interesting. I especially liked the the symbolism of the CEO vs. the Lizard as applied to the brain’s cerebral cortex vs. limbic system. I’ll have to explore it more when I have time.
Your brain on Gucci
Economists used to think consumers made rational purchasing decisions. But a new field of research is revealing neural forces that leave classical theorists scratching their heads
About
Although it started out as a means of practising expressing myself, this blog is turning out to be more of a compendium of interesting information I come across. One of these days I’ll have to actually write something as opposed to cut and paste. 
