Who among us has never had the fantasy of diving into and rolling around in a huge pile of money like the Disney character Scrooge McDuck?
The thing is, according to Kabir Sehgal, brain activity looks the same during a scan when a person believes a huge financial gamble is about to pay off as it does when a person is about to get a hit of cocaine or morphine. The thought of a financial windfall is even more powerful than the sight of a naked body.
Sehgal, in his book Coined: The Rich Life of Money and How Its History Has Shaped Us, wrote those findings come from a new branch of science called “neuroeconomics.” Neuroeconomics is an interdisciplinary science studying how the brain makes financial decisions and, according to Sehgal, involves neuroscientists, behavioral economists, “traditional” economists, psychologists, biologists, chemists and computer scientists. The upshot is that scientists can predict financial choices by studying the brain.
Of course, this is not the only thing in Sehgal’s book, which goes on sale March 10.
Sehgal, whose day job is as vice president in emerging market equities at J.P. Morgan in New York, covers the gamut of money from what might have been the first unit of exchange (a stone ax), to money in science and culture, how it is viewed by various religions, to what types of money people might use in space and what technology is available now and in the future.
“Coined” is an extremely readable book -- not a boring tome. Sehgal is a graduate of the London School of Economics and is a New York Times-bestselling author who has written three other books: A Bucket of Blessings, Walk in My Shoes: Conversations Between a Civil Rights Legend and His Godson on the Journey Ahead, and Jazzocracy: Jazz Democracy and the Creation of the New American Mythology.
The book took several years to research and write. That isn’t surprising because Sehgal wrote it in his free time, which isn’t a lot because he is also a U.S. Navy reservist.
The research took him around the world to, among other places, the Galapagos Islands, a Bangladesh archaeological dig, Vietnam, Thailand and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s gold vault.
It covers the history of money starting from the beginnings of society in which people began bartering that stone ax and agricultural goods. He writes about the various methods of paying a debt, the first coins, the history and cultural identity expressed by designs on money, and the origins of paper money.
Some interesting facts: