What are the origins of human economic behavior? Comparative studies of decision-making in our closest living relatives—chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus)—are critical to disentangle the biological bases of human choice. I will present evidence that humans and nonhuman apes share similar patterns of decision-making in several contexts, including high levels of patience and a bias against choosing the unknown. However, human choices are also modulated by currency: decisions about money are treated differently from decisions about biologically-relevant rewards such as food. This suggests that human economic behaviors have evolutionary roots as far back as the last common ancestor with nonhuman apes, but humans may also have specialized psychological skills for dealing with novel types of abstract rewards.