BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS - A NOVEL EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF DRUG-DEPENDENCE

Drug abuse and dependence are among the most important problems facing society today. Understanding the determinants of drug abuse has been advanced by a considerable quantity of research on environmental and p harmacological factors that control drug taking in a variety of settin gs and species. Behavioral economics, which is the application of econ omic principles to the behavior of the individual, may have the potent ial to integrate a number of these empirical observations in a novel q uantitative framework. In this paper the utility of behavioral economi cs for the study of drug dependence is reviewed. Specifically, we revi ewed (i) the parsimony behavioral economics affords via the integratio n of variables, (ii) a ubiquitous behavioral process it has identified , (iii) the precise quantification of that behavioral process and its predictive utility, (iv) a novel independent variable suggested by beh avioral economics, and (v) the utility of behavioral economic notions for the process of medication development. We conclude that behavioral economics provides a novel conceptual framework that has utility for the study of drug dependence.