Monkey Economics and the World’s Oldest ProfessionIn 2005 Yale economist Keith Chen and Yale-New Hav

Monkey Economics and the World’s Oldest ProfessionIn 2005 Yale economist Keith Chen and Yale-New Haven Hospital psychologist Laurie Santos conducted an experiment to see if monkeys could obtained a grasp on money and how to use it. The purpose of the study was to test if certain economic and psychological theories held true with other primates.  Over several months the researchers trained the monkeys to use simple round coins as money, which the monkeys could redeem for food such as grapes or cubes of Jello. The results of the study were remarkable. The researchers raised the price of Jello, at which point the monkeys would buy more grapes. Then the researchers would lower the price of Jello and raise the price of grapes, causing the demand for Jello to increase. The researchers did experiments with risk taking, including a gambling scenario where a monkey could buy one grape, with a random chance of a bonus grape being added, or could buy two grapes with a random chance of a grape being taken away.  The scenarios are in fact the same gamble, yet most monkeys chose to gamble on getting a bonus grape rather than risk having a grape taken away.Among the various studies conducted, the researchers noticed interesting behavior that went beyond their experiments. For one they noticed that the monkeys never bothered to save any money, even when the researchers set up conditions and incentives making it advantageous to do so.  Secondly the monkeys soon learned to steal. Here and there a monkey might steal a coin or two from another monkey, but in one incident a particularly crafty monkey managed to break into the researchers stash of coins and literally rob the bank, making off with a wealth of money.The most shocking incident demonstrated that the monkeys saw value in the coins beyond grapes and Jello.  During an experiment, the researchers watched as a male monkey casually sauntered up to a female monkey and gave her a coin.  The two monkeys had sex, after which the female monkey then took the coin and used it to purchase a grape. Incredibly the monkeys had invented for themselves what we call the “worlds oldest profession”. Monkey prostitution is a thing now.  -- source link

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