Abstract: in the present work, on the basis of modeling economic behavior of a person in a new institutional economy, an understanding of the motives of his economic activity is substantiated. The paper compares the content of an individual’s economic behavior in a neoclassical concept and a new institutional economy. It is shown that in the new institutional economy, the human behavioral nature is recreated most adequately. This means that the new institutional economy takes into account not only the behavior of the individual aimed at maximizing his own benefit, but numerous types of opportunistic behavior. The diversity of human economic behavior actualizes the problem of motivation. Motivation forms behavioral differences in the process of its economic activity. The paper proves that for the motives of economic activity, internals should be taken – the net private benefits that are formed taking into account transaction costs. Internals are formed in the process of internalization by an individual of existing economic incentives, based on a person’s abilities and his cultural and value worldview. Understanding the internalities as motives creates theoretical and methodological prerequisites for a more accurate explanation, forecasting and regulation of human economic behavior.
This understanding of the motives of human economic activity allows us to develop methodological approaches to the problem of motivation, more accurately configure economic incentives, and also create an effective structure of regulators of economic behavior.
Keywords: institutions, internals, motives, transaction costs, property rights, economic behavior