Monkeynomics

A fascinating NYT article describes the ongoing experiments conducted by economist Keith Chen, who has taught monkeys to use marshmallows as money.

Many kinds of "economic" behavior soon appeared, including, amazingly, prostitution (and a pragmatic followup) : "During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)"