The Evolution of Racketeering

The use of behavioral ecology to model the evolution of racketeering and organized crime in unregulated systems of exchange does have some points of overlap with the emerging field of behavioral economics. Behavioral economists maintain that psychological variables have measurable impacts on individual economic decision making and behavior (Camerer and Loewenstein, 2004). Much research in this area is conducted in laboratory settings so that subjects can be rigorously studied under controlled conditions. This approach also allows psychologically oriented economists to explore neurological substrates of economic behavior, such as reciprocity and altruism (Fehr and Schmidt, 2004). Behavioral economics also has implications for research with non-human primates, whose behavioral systems have also been shown to include notions of fairness as well as systems of reciprocity and exchange (see de Waal, 2010).