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Articles on Neuroeconomics

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A prototype Amazon delivery drone. Amazon.com

Delivery drones: swooping down to prey on our self-control

Amazon.com and others are eager to fill the skies with drones delivering packages at all hours. Convenient, yes, but it could transform – and not in a good way – our ability to make informed choices.
Punters line up every year to bet on the Melbourne Cup, but why do we overstate our odds? Dean Lewins/AAP

For this year’s Melbourne Cup, consider a charity rather than taking on Tom Waterhouse

In the lead-up to next week’s Melbourne Cup, bookmaker Tom Waterhouse is heavily marketing a “$25 million bet that stops a nation”. All you have to do is give him A$10 and if you place the first 10 horses…
Experimenting with bubbles. Flickr/Indigo Skies Photography

Brain scans could be used to predict financial bubbles

Some shares have new owners every second. Today much of the buying and selling is done by computers, but some still rely on human intuition – the gut feeling of the experienced trader. “Nobody can predict…
People are notoriously bad at filtering choices - being faced with too many leads us to choose poorly. Image sourced from www.shutterstock.com

AUDIO Q&A: Neuroeconomics and the answer to the ‘curse of choice’

We are faced with a myriad of choice in our lives - but an emerging body of work suggests the more choice we’re faced with, the more likely we’ll make a poor decision. The conundrum is called the “curse…
Neuroeconomics is a burgeoning field aimed at helping us understand decision-making. Image sourced from www.shutterstock.com

Explainer: neuroeconomics, where science and economics meet

Whether choosing a dinner, a car, a spouse or an investment, experts now know what part of the brain our likes and dislikes are encoded, how we represent alternatives, and even how we choose. This has…
Fight or flight? Bankers likely to opt for the second. BK and EP

Fear of risk linked to high stress hormone in bankers

In times of financial uncertainty and crisis, high stress reactions lead to traders becoming more risk averse, which drives pessimism and further falls in finance, according to a new study. This is because…
A game of bowls now, or Premier League tickets in a month? Your hippocampus can help. Crystian Cruz

Delayed gratification – how the hippocampus helps us hold off

Would you prefer a beer right now or a bottle of champagne next week? So begins an interesting new study published today in the journal PloS Biology. Of course these kinds of choices feature throughout…
When emotions meet economics: New York police and protesters clash during the Occupy movement protests on Wall Street. AAP

Economics and the brain: how people really make decisions in turbulent times

In a 2008 paper on neuroeconomics, Carnegie Mellon University economist George Loewenstein said: “Whereas psychologists tend to view humans as fallible and sometime even self-destructive, economists tend…

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