Money confers direct utility, instead of being valued only by what can be bought with it
The standard economic model assumes that the utility of money is indirect, since it is only a means to facilitate the exchange of goods and services, which are those that end up providing utility directly. Thus, the traditional, neoclassical economy, conceives the pleasure of food or cocaine, for example, and the "pleasure" of obtaining money, as two totally different phenomena. However, neurological evidence suggests that the same dopaminergic reward circuits of the brain are activated for a wide variety of different types of rewards, including attractive faces, funny cartoons, cultural objects, sports cars, drugs, and money. So, according to neuro evidence, it would seem that money, like the other goods and services mentioned, provides a direct reward.
Therefore, the idea that many types of reward (whether by buying goods and services or simply by having money in your pocket, even if it is not spent) are processed in a similar way in the brain, has important implications for economics, that he assumes that the marginal utility of money depends on what he can buy; in this way today it is hypothesized that money would become what psychologists call a "primary reinforcer", which means that people would value money without carefully calculating what they plan to buy with it. And while, we acknowledge, Neuroeconomics is not advanced enough today to categorically affirm this hypothesis, there is a very high possibility that brain valuation for money is loosely linked to the utility of consumption.
But then, if earning money directly provides pleasure, the experience of saying goodbye to him will probably be painful. This would be one of the reasons why many consumers tend to accept purchases in installments (medium and long term financing) to disguise the payments, and in this way reduce our pain by getting rid of liquidity.
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