Journal of Economic Literature
Book Reviews
2026-08-28
Rachel Croson of University of Texas at Dallas reviews “Economics and Psychology: A Promising New Cross-Disciplinary Field” by Bruno S. Frey, Alois Stutzer,. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Ten papers present a broad view of the interface between economics and psychology. Papers discuss economics and psychology--developments and issues (Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer); conditional cooperation--behavioral regularities from the lab and the field and their policy implications (Simon Gachter); a survey of economic theories and field evidence on prosocial behavior (Stephan Meier); why women and men trust others (Iris Bohnet); neuroeconomics--illustrated by the study of ambiguity aversion (Colin F. Camerer, Meghana Bhatt, and Ming Hsu); happiness and public policy--a challenge to the profession (Richard Layard); what happiness research can tell us about self-control problems and utility misprediction (Stutzer and Frey); the relevance of procedural utility for economics (Matthias Benz); the helping hand--a brief anatomy (Felix Oberholzer-Gee); and efficient social engineering and realistic cognitive modeling--a psychologist's thoughts (Ralph Hertwig). Frey is Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich. Stutzer is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Basel. Index.”