Scarce Means with Alternative Uses: Robbins’ Definition of Economics and Its Extension to the Behavioral and Neurobiological Study of Animal Decision Making

Abstract

Almost 80 years ago, Lionel Robbins proposed a highly influential definition of the subject matter of economics: the allocation of scarce means that have alternative ends. Robbins confined his definition to human behavior, and he strove to separate economics from the natural sciences in general and from psychology in particular. Nonetheless, I extend his definition to the behavior of non-human animals, rooting my account in psychological processes and their neural underpinnings. Some historical developments are reviewed that render such a view more plausible today than would have been the case in Robbins’ time. To illustrate a neuroeconomic perspective on decision making in non-human animals, I discuss research on the rewarding effect of electrical brain stimulation. Central to this discussion is an empirically based, functional/computational model of how the subjective intensity of the electrical reward is computed and combined with subjective costs so as to determine the allocation of time to the pursuit of reward. Some successes achieved by applying the model are discussed, along with limitations, and evidence is presented regarding the roles played by several different neural populations in processes posited by the model. I present a rationale for marshaling convergent experimental methods to ground psychological and computational processes in the activity of identified neural populations, and I discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and complementarity of the individual approaches. I then sketch some recent developments that hold great promise for advancing our understanding of structure–function relationships in neuroscience in general and in the neuroeconomic study of decision making in particular.

Valuation of opportunity costs by rats working for rewarding electrical brain stimulation

“…Time is the quintessentially scarce good [ 1 , 2 ]. Its supply cannot be increased, no matter how much we might wish otherwise, and its quantity is insufficient for the full satisfaction of our needs and wants.…”

“…Economists use the term, “opportunity cost,” to refer to the foregone benefits of the most valuable activity that was eschewed in favour of the one pursued [ 3 , 4 ]. This concept also plays an important role in accounts of the behavior of non-human animals [ 2 ]. For example, time spent foraging for food reduces time available for other activities essential for survival [ 5 , 6 ].…”

Values and their role in an eco-friendly and active vacation

“…This definition uses terms such as economic activities, exchange for money, goods. The terms bring us to Economics, a science that studies the use of scarce resources to satisfy unlimited human desires while there is a constant gap between human wants and needs and productive possibilities in order to satisfy the wishes (Robbins in Shizgal, 2012;Rebernik, 2008). People have almost unlimited wants, but limited resources.…”

Brain Stimulation Reward

“…The study of the neural basis of decision making and the evaluation of the benefits, costs, and risks on which choices are based has come to be called neuroeconomics (Glimcher & Rustichini 2004;Loewenstein et al 2008). The first papers written from this perspective were accounts of ICSS (Shizgal & Conover 1996;Shizgal 1997), and it has been argued that there is a striking correspondence between the neuroeconomic approach to ICSS and some core ideas in economics, judgment, and decision making (Shizgal 2012). The neuroeconomic approach shares with the reinforcement-learning approach a commitment to quantitative models that can be tested by means of behavioral and neural measurements.…”