Neuroeconomics: the effect of context in decisions relating to the Brazilian electric sector

Abstract

Economic agents use to have serious limitations on the process of "rational" decision making in their economic lives. Even those who are prepared to make decisions in the very competitive environment of nowadays markets may have unconscious stimuli. A good example of this reality is the "panic" caused by the crisis in 2008 that reached the economic agents in particular, the economic analysts, governments, etc. Today they try to find explanations for the explosion of the crisis. A major bias is found in the way decisions are presented to agents, concerning to the "context effect" on decisions. Given the inability that “school of rational economy” has to explain the economic problems, neuroeconomics comes to take this place aiming to explain these problems by studying the brain of economic agents. As a result, neuroeconomics may become a way to find solutions to problems that for several decades economists could not find an explanation to the consumption and investment decisions of individuals in the economy