Believing that there is some truth in economists' belief in universal laws and some in sociological critiques complaining about the perils of ignoring the uniqueness of individual and cultural behavior, the authors offer this text as a step towards a behavioral economics that eclectically borrows from economics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and social science in order to better understand the motivations of economic actors. Over the course of the work they examine the ways in which economic decisions are affected by perception and interpretation, game theory as means of understanding the relationship between self-interest and cooperation in economic interactions, altruism-attenuated exceptions and extensions to the standard economic maximization model, the implications of the study of happiness or subjective well-being, the influence of cooperation and altruism on the formation of social capital, the ramifications of collective action to produce collective goods, the nature of public goods and public choice, and income distribution and the philosophy of social justice as articulated by such as John Rawls and Amartya Sen. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)