Behavioral Sciences
M. Motavaseli; E. Razaghi; M.H. Hadi
Abstract
This paper sets out to present a better understanding of the economic approach to the analysis of addictive behavior. Addiction, in accordance with the standard definitions, is a consumption behavior, which follows certain behavioral patterns. Based on recent neuroscience researches on addiction, there ...
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This paper sets out to present a better understanding of the economic approach to the analysis of addictive behavior. Addiction, in accordance with the standard definitions, is a consumption behavior, which follows certain behavioral patterns. Based on recent neuroscience researches on addiction, there is now a wide consensus regarding how the consumption of addictive substances affects the neural mechanisms of decision-making. These findings, next to strong supports from psychological patterns of addictive behavior, have led to a better understanding of the nature of addiction. The development of this understanding to required policies in the field of addiction, meets what we expect from the economic approach to the analysis of addictive behavior. By defining welfare criteria for consumers, the application of economic theory in this analysis helps developing policies that are measurable and comparable in terms of achieving their goals. Accordingly, the behavioral economic approach to addictive behavior helps assimilating qualitative concepts and insights of relevant disciplines into a quantitative analytical framework of making decision as to addictive consumption. This is particularly important for generating a more rigorous, and at the same time comprehensive toolkit for making policies that are seeking to reduce the harms of addiction. On this basis, in this paper, we have attempted to explain why behavioral economics is an analytical framework suitable for extracting requisite policy implications in the field of addiction.
Mahmood Motavaseli; Mahmood MashhadiAhmad; Ali Nikoonesbati
Abstract
The elimination of institutions from economic analysis can be thought of as the most important cause in making economics as a separate science. The direct result of this step, which shows the desire of mainstream economics to follow physics in order to get the merit of "science" by wearing mathematical ...
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The elimination of institutions from economic analysis can be thought of as the most important cause in making economics as a separate science. The direct result of this step, which shows the desire of mainstream economics to follow physics in order to get the merit of "science" by wearing mathematical crown, was the dereliction of interdisciplinary studies and disregarding of ethics and politics. So, it can be claimed that, the elimination of institutions is one of the most unpleasant events in the history of economic thought and led this branch of human knowledge in an arena free from reality and full of mathematical abstractions. Regarding this fact, it seems necessary to study the causes of this neglect. This necessity encouraged us to fill the existing gap in the related literature and bring some reasons to light. In order to reach to this goal, using content and textual analysis methods, some major causes of ignoring institutions is identified, among which the following can be pointed: intense desire of some economists to follow physics, their mistake in separating economics from human sciences, the impacts of political events, and a set of epistemological and methodological reasons.