Quartz: We just saw what voters do when they feel screwed. Here’s the economic theory of why they do it

One of the most interesting experiments in economics is known as the ultimatum game. It deftly gets at a fundamental truth of human nature — about how our deep emotional programming cause us to do things that, when viewed through the lens of rationality, just don’t make sense.

The game itself involves two players. The first player receives a sum of money, and gets to propose how to divide it between the two players. The second player can do only one thing: accept or reject the proposal. If the second player accepts, then the money is divided between the two players as proposed.

But if the second player rejects the proposal, then neither player gets anything.

Approaching the game from a rational economic perspective, the second player should accept any proposal that involves an offer of anything — because the alternative, of course, is to receive nothing.But that’s where things get interesting. It’s not how people behave at all. [...]

But while China and the developing world have benefited enormously from trade, so too has the developed world. The benefits of comparative advantage are real. But the question then becomes: for every extra dollar that has accrued to the US and the UK, who has been the beneficiary?

Here’s a hint: it’s not the people who are voting for Trump and Brexit. These folks don’t care about the chart above, or what it represents as an accomplishment for humanity.

It’s not their chart.

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