Page "Behavioral economics" Paragraph 20

Many early studies of non-human economic reasoning were performed on rats and pigeons in an operant conditioning chamber.

These studies looked at things like peck rate ( in the case of the pigeon ) and bar-pressing rate ( in the case of the rat ) given certain conditions of reward.

Early researchers claim, for example, that response pattern ( pecking / bar pressing rate ) is an appropriate analog to human labor supply.

Researchers in this field advocate for the appropriateness of using animal economic behavior to understand the elementary components of human economic behavior.

In a paper by Battalio, Green, and Kagel ( 1981, p 621 ), they write