Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis

A new academic field, neuroeconomics, has emerged at the border of the social and natural sciences. In Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis, Paul Glimcher argues that a meaningful interdisciplinary synthesis of the study of human and animal choice is not only desirable, but also well underway, and so it is time to formally develop a foundational approach for the field. He does so by laying the philosophical and empirical groundwork and integrating the theory of choice and valuation with the relevant physical constraints and mechanisms.

While there has been an intense debate about the value and prospects of neuroeconomics, Glimcher argues that existing data from neuroeconomics' three parent fields, neuroscience, psychology and economics, already specify the basic features of the primate choice mechanism at all three levels of analysis. His central argument is that combining these three disciplines gives us enough insight to define many of the fundamental features of decision making that have previously eluded scholars working within each individual field.

With this in mind, Glimcher provides a comprehensive overview of the neuroscience, psychology, and economics of choice behavior, which will help readers from many disciplines to grasp the rich interconnections between these fields and see how their data and theory can interact to produce new insights and constraints.

"Paul Glimcher is a pioneering neuroscientist, and an intrepid
interdisciplinary researcher. In Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis
he uses contemporary neuroscience, economics and psychology as reference
points to describe the value of looking at all three fields together,
and to lay out his vision of how they can be integrated as
neuroeconomics."
--Al Roth, http://www.economics.harvard.edu/~aroth/alroth.html,
http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/