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As in all the wrinkles before it, neuroeconomics will in the end be
seen as no threat to neo-classical economics. It will be taken into
the fold, perhaps as a footnote in Mankiw's textbook, 74th edition.
Berkeley is making a major bet in neuroeconomics and Harvard is also
adding to the curriculum. Don't worry, though, the old demand curve
will still slope down and to the right, intersecting the U-shaped cost
curve at just the right point to prove that the market works. Nevertheless, I'm impelled to ask you to identify the date and the writer of the following: "Once the standard of living has bettered 'subsistence', the static reversible preference system becomes particularly implausible. The brain proably possesses a virtually infinite capacity for recording experiences, and its state -- an electro-chemical condition -- is the product of everything it has felt and done during the whole of its history. Each experience, however trivial, makes a permanent alteration. But although the present state of the brain is the product of all that has gone before, it is also the sole determinant of how it will react to stimuli received now." Gene Coyle |
