Dubner and Levitt are writing a new monthly column in The New York Times Magazine, called, of course, Freakonomics. The very first column, Monkey Business, looks at Yale economist Keith Chen’s work teaching capuchin monkeys to use money:
A capuchin monkey must decide how to spend his budget of twelve coins (located on the yellow and white striped tray in the front of the trading room.) Two human research assistants are present (one wearing blue and one wearing red), and both hold a piece of food in an orange dish for the monkey to see. The red research assistant “sells” grapes and the blue research assistant “sells” Jell-o cubes, with each piece of food costing a coin from the monkey’s budget.
A capuchin reveals its preferences.The capuchin must make a decision analogous to a grocery-store shopper’s: how much of their budget to spend of grapes and how much to spend on Jell-o.
The cotton-top tamarins are pretty cool too.