Monkeys Are Better at Economics Than I Am

Let’s imagine for a second that the pandemic is over and you are having a much-deserved vacation in Bali, Indonesia. You are super relaxed and enjoying the fantastic nature. You are also fascinated by the culture and want to visit some temples. Uluwatu Temple, a gorgeous Hindu temple, is located at the edge of a lush cliff overlooking the sea. While you are gazing around in awe, a sneaky monkey approaches and steals your camera. You are dumbfounded and not sure what to do. The monkey refuses to give your camera back until the temple staff offers it some food.

This is a very likely scenario if we ignore the fact that none of us can travel right now. Monkeys living around Uluwatu Temple are famous for stealing items from tourists and bartering them for food. They are free-ranging monkeys belonging to the species Macaca fascicularis. For a study published this month¹, a team of researchers observed and recorded these monkeys for 273 days. An incredible effort, really.

With age comes wisdom.

The study reveals that stealing and bartering behavior is learned in time. Monkeys over 4 years of age had more successful stealing and bartering attempts compared to younger monkeys. The success of sneaky attempts further increases with advancing age.

Give me the good stuff!

Monkeys can tell which human possessions are more valuable. It turns out that the monkeys prefer stealing items such as cameras, cell phones, and wallets over more trivial items like empty camera bags or hair ties. The older monkeys who are better at stealing are also better at distinguishing low-value items from high-value items. This wisdom also comes with age. The researchers found no association between the selection of items and their local availability or ease of stealing. This really indicates that the monkeys have a value perception for the items.

Masters of bartering

Not only do these monkeys steal valuable things on purpose, but they also know to ask for more and better food in exchange. When they steal a high-value item, they ask for more food and don’t return the item easily. On the contrary, if they hold a lower-value item, they might quickly settle for food that is not even their favorite. They know what each object is worth and how much humans are willing to pay for it.

Proved for the gazillionth time: Humans are not as superior as they think.

This study is fascinating because it reveals that complex economic decision-making abilities like payoff maximization in trade/barter are not unique to humans. Contrary to the prevalent view, we seem to share complicated economic ways of thinking with non-human primates². I, for one, believe that these temple monkeys would outperform me in bartering any day.

Sources

1. Leca, Jean-Baptiste, et al. “Acquisition of object-robbing and object/food-bartering behaviours: a culturally maintained token economy in free-ranging long-tailed macaques.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 376.1819 (2021): 20190677.
2. Addessi, Elsa, et al. “Are the roots of human economic systems shared with non-human primates?.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 109 (2020): 1-15.