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 pharmacological factors that control drug taking in a variety of settings and species. Behavioral economics, which is the application of economic principles to the behavior of the individual, may have the potential to integrate a number of these empirical observations in a novel quantitative framework. In this paper the utility of behavioral economics for the study of drug dependence is reviewed. Specifically, we reviewed (i) the parsimony behavioral economics affords via the integration 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 behavioral 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.