A history of neuroeconomics as a direction of economic theory

<p>The main purpose of this theoretical work is to overview neuroeconomic achievements and to answer if neuroeconomics is really a subfield of economics. Neuroeconomics is an emergent field that combines methods of neuroscience, psychology and [what is of most interest to us] economics. Chapter 1 is about the probable causes that unavoidably led to what we call neuroeconomics. Neuroeconomics as we know today has appeared when behavioral economists have firstly heard the words &ldquo;neuro&rdquo; and &ldquo;economics&rdquo; together but that was originaly quite different field that used economic models in computational neuroscience. Also there is the main part, the core of this work where the studies of neuroeconomics, divided into objects of research, are reviewed. The overview includes the base model of choice, dualism of decision making, some economic experiments in the scanner and decision making under risk and uncertainty. Chapter 2 contains thoughts about what neuroeconomics can and cannot and to economic theory. Therefore, there is a paragraph about the necessity of psychologism in economics. Another parts of the chapter include the arguments for the nearest possible contributions of neuroeconomics to the mainstream positive and normative economics with the usage of exogenous and endogenous variables, measuring well-being or having fundamental theory to justify nudge. Also there are thoughts if neuroeconomics can provide a brand new theory. The last chapter is about possible changes in social order and some ethical issues. Possible ways of magnetic stimulation under vital choices, neuroeconomic and its part pharmacoeconomic policy and even human gene engineering are considered in the first paragraph. The second paragraph focuses on the issues of collecting data, specifically using animals in the neuroeconomic experiments. Also there are considerations about nudge policy and possible conflict of neuroeconomics with religious opinions.</p>