Phylogenetic Economics: Animal Models and the Study of Choice

Abstract

While the investigation of non-human economic decision-making is increasingly popular, it is not clear exactly what role it can play in settling debates in economics. This paper argues that—contrary to recent claims otherwise—data on animal decision-making do not help in (dis–)confirming economic theories of choice. Rather, such data help in spelling out the representationally proper domains of models of choice. To play this role, though, these data must be placed into phylogenetic comparative analyses: correlations with specific environmental features need to be assessed, and these correlations need to be corrected for the presence of phylogenetic signals.