Neuroeconomics

In the years since it first published, Neuroeconomics: Decision Making and the Brain has become the standard reference and textbook in the burgeoning field of neuroeconomics. The second edition, a nearly complete revision of this landmark book, will set a new standard. This new edition features five sections designed to serve as both classroom-friendly introductions to each of the major subareas in neuroeconomics, and as advanced synopses of all that has been accomplished in the last two decades in this rapidly expanding academic discipline. The first of these sections provides useful introductions to the disciplines of microeconomics, the psychology of judgment and decision, computational neuroscience, and anthropology for scholars and students seeking interdisciplinary breadth. The second section provides an overview of how human and animal preferences are represented in the mammalian nervous systems. Chapters on risk, time preferences, social preferences, emotion, pharmacology, and common neural currencies—each written by leading experts—lay out the foundations of neuroeconomic thought. The third section contains both overview and in-depth chapters on the fundamentals of reinforcement learning, value learning, and value representation. The fourth section, “The Neural Mechanisms for Choice,” integrates what is known about the decision-making architecture into state-of-the-art models of how we make choices. The final section embeds these mechanisms in a larger social context, showing how these mechanisms function during social decision-making in both humans and animals. The book provides a historically rich exposition in each of its chapters and emphasizes both the accomplishments and the controversies in the field. A clear explanatory style and a single expository voice characterize all chapters, making core issues in economics, psychology, and neuroscience accessible to scholars from all disciplines. The volume is essential reading for anyone interested in neuroeconomics in particular or decision making in general.

"This fully revised, second edition comes five years after the first and reflects the tremendous growth in the field of neurobiology of decision making…The text, uniformly well written and accessible, does not shy away from controversies in the research. This is an excellent text for either a graduate course or a very advanced undergraduate course on the subject." Summing Up: Recommended. --CHOICE Reviews Online, June 2014 "This book describes neuroeconomics, a combination of neuroscience and behavioral economics, with the goal of understanding how economic policies influence motivation on a neuropsychological level and, ultimately, behavior…This is an excellent book…It should be in the libraries of students and professionals interested in neuroeconomics."Rating: 4 Stars --Doody.com, April 4, 2014 Reviews for the First Edition: "Neuroeconomics is a timely collection of papers by leading researchers from both sides of the border between economics and neuroscience…The book should be of interest to anyone who has ever wondered about the mechanics of how decisions are made in the brain, and what it means about human nature." --VINCE CRAWFORD, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO, USA "Economists pride themselves on rigorous parsimony. By taking the neural correlates of behavior into account, potentially explanatory variables explode. This book shows when digging deeper nonetheless pays for economics, and how to do it well." --CHRISTOPH ENGEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON COLLECTIVE GOODS, BONN, GERMANY "For those onlookers who can’t quite accept that neuroscience may provide insight into how we decide what course of action to follow, the contributors to this comprehensive volume offer some very compelling, and very serious experimental and theoretical insights. Highly recommended, and enormously provocative." --FLOYD BLOOM, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, DEPARTMENT OF NEUROPHARMACOLOGY, THE SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, LA JOLLA, USA

Paul W. Glimcher, Julius Silver Professor of Neural Science, Economics and Psychology at New York University. Director, Center for Neuroeconomics, NYU. A.B. - Princeton University, Magna cum Laude. Ph.D. -University of Pennsylvania, Neuroscience. Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Association for Psychological Science and the McKnight, Whitehall, Klingenstein and McDonnell Foundations. Investigator of the National Eye Institute, The National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Institute on Aging. Founding President of the Society for Neuroeconomics. Winner of the Margaret and Herman Sokol Faculty Award in the Sciences, 2003. Winner of NYU’s Distinguished (Lifetime Accomplishment) Teaching Award, 2006. Member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. Publications in Nature, Science, Neuron, Journal of Neurophysiology, American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, Vision Research, Experimental Brain Research, MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Science and numerous edited volumes. He is the author of: Decisions, Uncertainty and, the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics, 2003 from MIT Press. Winner of the American Association of Publishers Medical Sciences Book of the Year, 2003. Neuroeconomics. Decision Making and the Brain, 2009 from Academic Press. Winner of the American Association of Publishers Economics and Social Sciences Book of the Year Awards, 2009. Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis, 2011 from Oxford University Press. Neuroeconomics. Decision Making and the Brain 2nd ed. 2013. Professor Glimcher’s work has been covered by the popular press in the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, Money Magazine, New Scientist, and on National Public Radio, The BBC, Le Monde, Die Welt, Frankfurter Allgemeine, La Vanguardia, Fox News, and NOVA amongst others. http://www.neuroeconomics.nyu.edu http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~glimcher