Strong growth in disposable income has driven, and is still driving, consumption to unprecedented, but not sustainable levels. To explain the dynamic interplay of needs, need satisfaction, and innovation underlying that growth a behavioral theory of consumption is suggested and discussed with...

We provide a simple evolutionary explanation for the emergence of hedonic adaptation. The model's key assumption is that, apart from guiding long-term behavior, some sensations fulfill warning and defense roles (e.g., pain). Contrary to the alternative evolutionary explanations for hedonic...

This paper explores the implications of the recent revival of Hegel studies for the philosophy of economics. We argue that Hegel's theory of Objective Spirit anticipates many elements of modern approaches in cognitive sciences and of the philosophy of mind, which adopt an externalist framework....

Building on Lea and Webley's drug theory of money, the paper connects different theoretical resources to develop a Darwinian theory of money. The central empirical observation is the neuroeconomic result of the independent role of money as a reinforcer, which matches with a series of other...

The concept of adaptive rationality as a characteristic of economic behavior viewed in the framework of evolution of institutions is proposed in the paper. The analysis of the most important approaches to rationality in the economic theory has allowed identifying the special nature of adaptive...

Spanish Abstract: Este artículo revisa las ideas de Coase sobre la metodología en economía a partir de su crítica de Friedman y las compara con ideas provenientes de otros campos. Argumenta que su adaptación de Kuhn es más apropiada para la economía en su forma actual que para la época...

What factors and processes influence the wealth of nations? This is the central question addressed by North, Wallis, and Weingast (NWW) (2009) in their framework for quot;interpreting recorded human history.quot; This essay emphasizes that the implications of NWW's analysis provide the...

This paper sheds new light on the concept of selection in evolutionary economics. The interpretation of natural evolution has experienced significant changes in the last decades, while these developments have been often ignored by economists. This is especially true for the concept of selection,...

Microfinance has made and continues to do a lot of debate. In these debates, an under-documented aspect is the impacts on recipients’ behavior. Through an empirical study on a sample of 500 beneficiaries of microfinance in Haiti, we mobilize the new theoretical framework of institutional...

The paper critically discusses the issue of rationality and choices in economics in both the behavioural and evolutionary approaches. Our study aims, on the one hand, to highlight the scientific contributions of psychology in economics, since psychology, and with it the theoretical approach of...