SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

The Science of Economic Bubbles and Busts

from Scientific American

... Economists have fought for decades about whether money illusion and, more generally, the influence of irrationality on economic transactions are themselves illusory.

... But the ideas of behavioral economists, who study the role of psychology in making economic decisions, are gaining increasing attention today, as scientists of many stripes struggle to understand why the world economy fell so hard and fast.

And their ideas are bolstered by the brain scientists who make inside-the-skull snapshots of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and other brain areas.