IS HOMO ECONOMICUS EXTINCT? VERNON SMITH, DANIEL KAHNEMAN AND THE EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE

The awarding in October of 2002 of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 1 Technically the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, established in 1968.¹ to Daniel Kahneman and Vernon Smith might have profound implications for the survival of Homo economicus, which has long occupied a privileged place in the minds of economists and decision-making theorists. The species has endured many challenges and proven quite adaptable, changing to accommodate a cascade of findings inconsistent with its original conception. Homo economicus now faces a potentially more serious challenge: the resurgence of Homo sapiens, a more coherent and biologically grounded model for human decision-making, informed by theory and data from across the scientific spectrum.