Axiomatic neuroeconomics

This chapter describes the axiomatic approach to neuroeconomics. The axiomatic approach to neuroeconomics forms part of a wider agenda for the incorporation of nonstandard data into economics. Recent advances in experimental techniques have led to an explosion in the range of data available to those interested in decision-making. This has caused something of a backlash within economics against the use of nonstandard data in general and neuroscientific data in particular. In their impassioned defense of "mindless economics" Gul and Pesendorfer claimed that nonchoice data cannot be used as evidence for or against economic models, as these models are not designed to explain such observations. By design, our axiomatic approach is immune to such criticisms as it produces models, which formally characterize whatever data is under consideration. Ideally, an expanded conception of the reach of the axiomatic methodology will not only open new directions for neuroeconomic research, but also connect the discipline more firmly with other advances in the understanding of the process of choice, and the behaviors that result.