Amos Tversky's research on preferences and beliefs has had a shattering and yet highly constructive influence on the development of economics. The vague complaints of psychologists and dissident economists about the excessive rationality assumptions of standard economics, going back over a century, had little impact. It required the careful accumulation of evidence, the clear sense that Tversky did not misunderstand what economists were assuming, and above all his formulation of useful alternative hypotheses to change dissatisfaction into a revolutionary change in perspective.
Kenneth J. Arrow, Professor of Economics Emeritus, Stanford University, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences (1972)
This book presents social science at its interdisciplinary best: an exhilarating mix of game theory, evolutionary biology, experimental economics, cultural anthropology, primatology, and policy analysis. It will change our views of how biology and culture together determine social behavior.
Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences
This outstanding book provides an extraordinary set of insights into the nature and effects of cooperation. Not only does it demolish the view, widespread in the social sciences, that people are selfish; it goes beyond demolition to delineate the uses and limits of cooperation in human behavior. One of its many virtues is that it extends the theoretical debate directly into the realm of law and policy, showing how an understanding of cooperation bears on employment practices, street crime, environmental protection, welfare policy, and even the behavior of taxpayers.
Cass R. Sunstein, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago
This is the wave of the future in social science research: the dissolution of disciplinary boundaries, a unified conceptual framework, and rapid feedback between theoretical and empirical inquiry.
David Sloan Wilson, Binghamton University, author of Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society
This work synthesizes the elements of the burgeoning, transdiciplinary field of study on the evidence of cooperation in human behavior, economic and otherwise. The hypothesis of strong reciprocity—of willingness to both punish departures from norms, even at a cost, and to contribute, even in the absence of direct gain—is tested in the field and in experimental studies. The papers in this book, and the studies on which they are based, represent an important new direction for social research, one with important policy consequences.
Kenneth J. Arrow, Professor of Economics Emeritus, Stanford University, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences (1972)
Where once human economy was viewed abstractly, as a mere reflection of market forces, there is increasing interest in how it derives from natural human tendencies. We do not come into this world as rational profit-maximizers, but as bonded, group-living primates. This volume sets the stage for new economic thinking that takes this thoroughly social heritage into account. With its attention to moral implications, it is the perfect book for the post-Enron era.
Frans de Waal, author of Our Inner Ape
