올해 1월 13일자 The Economist의 Economics focus는 뇌 과학을 경제학에 응용하는 연구에 대한 것이더군요. 이익과 손실, 그리고 단기적 전망과 장기적 전망이 각각 뇌의 다른 부분을 활성화시킨다는 얘기가 있습니다. 앞으로 이런 연구가 쌓이면 더 정교한 경제학이 탄생할 수 있을까요? 기사 중에서 흥미로운 부분을 발췌해 보았습니다(기사 전체를 보시려면 economist.com에 가시면 됩니다. 현재로서는 이 기사가 무료로 제공되고 있습니다).
* 광고: 어차피 같은 내용이지만, 제 블로그에 와서 보셔도 됩니다. 이것 말고 다른 글들도 있어요.^^
http://blog.paran.com/intrad2
-----
The current bout of research is made possible by the arrival of new technologies such as functional magnetic-resonance imaging, which allows second-by-second observation of brain activity. [...] For example, the idea that humans compute the “expected value” of future events is central to many economic models. [...] Brian Knutson, of Stanford University, carried out one recent brain-scan experiment to understand how humans compute such things. [...] Brain activity in certain neural systems seemed to reveal a strong correlation with the amount of money at stake. Moreover, the prospects of gains and losses activated different parts of the brain.
-----
David Laibson, an economist at Harvard University, thinks that such experiments underscore the big role that expectations play in a person's well-being. Economists have usually assumed that people's well-being, or “utility”, depends on their level of consumption, but it might be that changes in consumption, especially unexpected downward ones, as in these experiments, can be especially unpleasant. [...] Mr Laibson and others found that the brain's response to short-term riches [...] occurs largely in the limbic system, a region that governs emotion. By contrast, the prospect of rewards farther into the future triggers the prefrontal cortex, which is often associated with reason and calculation.
