Chapter 1 - Introduction: Overview of Behavioural Economic Perspectives on Substance Use and Addition

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of behavioral economic perspectives on substance use and addiction. Behavioral economics is a system of specific concepts that applies the general principles of relativism and molarity to understanding the use of psychoactive substances. The value of substance use, and therefore the extent to which it is preferred, is viewed as a function of the benefit/cost ratio of substance consumption in relation to the benefit/cost ratios of other available activities. The original behavioral theory of choice is the matching law, which produced subsequent conceptual and empirical developments that currently are theoretically, methodologically, and quantitatively quite complex and sophisticated. The chapter discusses several applications of behavioral economics to research on substance use. It also describes the four primary theories, such as hyperbolic temporal discounting as applied to addiction, the melioration theory of addiction, the relative theory of addiction, and the theory of rational addiction.