While mainstream economic models assume that individuals treat probabilities objectively, many people tend to overestimate the likelihood of improbable events and underestimate the likelihood of probable events. However, a biological account for why probabilities would be treated this way does not yet exist. While undergoing fMRI, we presented individuals with a series of lotteries, defined by ...

Mediterranean ecosystems support important processes and functions that bring direct benefits to human society. Yet, marine ecosystem services are usually overlooked due to the challenges in identifying and quantifying them. This paper proposes the application of several biophysical and ecosystem modelling approaches to assess spatially and temporally the sustainable use and supply of selected ...

The use of agricultural-based biofuels has expanded. Discussions on how to assess green house gas (GHG) emissions from biofuel policies, specifically on (non-observed) land-use change (LUC) effects involve two main topics: (i) the limitations on the existing methodologies, and (ii) how to isolate the effects of biofuels. This paper discusses the main methodologies currently used by policy-maker...

Programs are typically developed with little or no consideration of their performance under different system loads or the effect they may have on other processes competing for the same resources. To an extent, this stems from the “virtual machine” approach promoted by most mainstream operating systems. With operating systems which offer mechanisms for fine-grained control of resource allocation...

Synopsis: The paper ‘bridges the divide’ between the biological and economic literature on marine reserves. It provides a selected review of the traditional use of reserves, the early reserve literature, the potential benefits of reserves, spillovers from reserves to harvested areas and bioeconomic models of marine reserves. The bioeconomics literature is examined from the perspectives of deter...

The combination of economic and biological factors is likely to result in overeating in the current environment of cheap and readily available food. This propensity is shown using a "dual decision" approach where choices reflect the interaction of a "deliberative" system, operating as in standard economic models, and an "affective" system that responds rapidly to stimuli without considering lon...

Q uantitative theory uses simple, abstract economic models together with a small amount of economic data to highlight major economic mechanisms. To illustrate the methods of quantitative theory, we review studies of the production function by Paul Douglas, Robert Solow, and Edward Prescott. Consideration of these studies takes an important research area from its earliest days through contempora...

How best to predict Australian federal election results? This article analyses three forecasting tools – opinion polls, economic models, and betting odds. Historically, we find that opinion polls taken close to the election are quite accurate, while economic models provide better medium-run forecasts. The 2001 election largely follows this pattern, although the economic models provided more acc...

BACKGROUND A vast body of social and cognitive psychology studies in humans reports evidence that external rewards, typically monetary ones, undermine intrinsic motivation. These findings challenge the standard selfish-rationality assumption at the core of economic reasoning. In the present work we aimed at investigating whether the different modulation of a given monetary reward automatically ...