As the stock market continues its dive, economists and business columnists have spilled a lot of ink assigning responsibility for the ongoing financial calamity. While hindsight might be clear as day, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory are trying to create new economic models that will provide policymakers with more realistic pictures of different types of markets so they can better avert future economic catastrophe.

These new models rely on information gleaned in part from surveys that ask respondents about the factors that influence the way they make decisions. By gaining a more precise understanding of the behavior patterns of individual actors in a market – for example, how willing they are to accept risk, how strongly they value the future or how much time and effort they are able to spend making decisions – researchers and economists can better predict and avoid meltdowns.