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Has Money Transformed Our Brains? A Glimpse into Stone-Age Neuroeconomics

Author

Listed:
  • Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde

    (Université Paris 2
    Institut Jean-Nicod, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, ENS, PSL University)

Abstract

Monetary exchanges supported by coins appeared less than 3000 years ago in Lydia. They don’t resort to an evolutionary temporal scale of human brain development as determined by long interaction with natural environments. Yet, we can hypothesize, in the light of several behavioral and brain-imaging experiments, that these eminently cultural artifacts, coins, have established specific neural connections with otherwise evolutionary shaped functional brain areas. This is documented by a seemingly fast and automatic processing of coin monetary validity in the posterior fusiform gyrus, a ventral stream area functionally dedicated to the automatic decoding of ecological items such as human faces and food. This type of evidence triggers a discussion on two accounts. It leads us to reconsider how shortterm functional neural adaptations to cultural environments predate long-term neurobiological evolution. Finally, potentially providing new insights on Sahlins’ hypotheses about the anthropological emergence of economic activities, it anchors our modern economic behavior and environment into a natural history.

Suggested Citation

  • Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde, 2021. "Has Money Transformed Our Brains? A Glimpse into Stone-Age Neuroeconomics," Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (Italy), vol. 55(1), pages 165-184, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:fle:journl:v:55:y:2021:i:1:p:165-184
    DOI: 10.26331/1139
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde & Catherine Tallon-Baudry & Florent Meyniel, 2011. "Fast and Automatic Activation of an Abstract Representation of Money in the Human Ventral Visual Pathway," Post-Print ijn_00713469, HAL.
    2. Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde & Marianne Guille, 2011. "Keynes's animal spirits vindicated: an analysis of recent empirical and neural data on money illusion," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 331-352.
    3. Paul Seabright, 2010. "The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life Revised Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9169.
    4. E. Quintiero & Serena Gastaldi & Francesca de Petrillo & Elsa Addessi & Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde, 2021. "Quantity–quality trade-off in the acquisition of token preference by capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.)," Post-Print hal-03156622, HAL.
    5. Francesca de Petrillo & Martina Caroli & Emanuele Gori & Antonia Micucci & Serena Gastaldi & Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde & Elsa Addessi, 2019. "Evolutionary origins of money categorization and exchange: an experimental investigation in tufted capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.)," Post-Print hal-02952946, HAL.
    6. Snelders, H. M. J. J. & Hussein, Gonul & Lea, Stephen E. G. & Webley, Paul, 1992. "The polymorphous concept of money," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 71-92, March.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Money; Coins; Cultural Cortical Recycling; Marshall Sahlins; Cultural Neuroscience; Economic Anthropology;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • D87 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Neuroeconomics
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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