Do consumers make rational choices? It might not sound like the title of an art exhibit, but it's one of the questions visitors cancontemplate at France's first museum aimed at revealing the arcane theories and systems underpinning the global economy.

But the Citeco, housed in a sumptuous neo-Renaissance palace built by a banker in the 19th century, also takes up a tougher challenge: reconcilethe French with a subject often viewed with a mix of suspicion and contempt.

"The idea is for people to better understand and grasp the economy, that its general mechanisms be laid out in one place, because the levelof comprehension is not what we would hope," Philippe Gineste, the director, told AFP at the museum's inauguration on Friday.

The museum is banking on 130,000 visitors a year, including some 30,000 students as young as seven or eight.

The project was conceived after a visit by the former Bank of France governor Christian Noyer to the MIDE interactive economics museum in MexicoCity, which opened in 2006.

Many of the exhibits are hands-on, including a contest where players compete to get to the beach fastest by figuring out how to make or trade forthe sunglasses, hats and other things they'll need.

Visitors can also touch a gold bar or try their hand at making their own paper money, or admire a buffalo sculpture by the French scrap metal"alchemist" Christian Champin.

"There are plenty of things to look at, read and think about. Overall we offer around 12 hours of content, but the idea is that visitors justpick and choose what interests them the most," said the museum's curator Xavier Limagne.

And even if people don't leave with expert knowledge of the concepts of scarcity or utility, maybe they will have a better understanding oftheir own spending or the current trade battles by the US with Europe and China.

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The art of money: New Parismuseum puts economy centre stage (http://artdaily.com/news/114392/The-art-of-money--New-Paris-museum-puts-economy-centre-stage#.XQTnPIhKiAs)