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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Engseld, Peter (Department of Economics, Lund University); Bergh, Andreas (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | We analyze a cooperation game in an evolutionary environment. Agents make noisy observations of opponents’ propensity to cooperate, called reputation, and form preferences over opponents based on their reputation. A game takes place when two agents agree to play. Pareto optimal cooperation is evolutionarily stable when reputation perfectly reflects propensity to cooperate. With some reputation noise, there will be at least some cooperation. Individual concern for reputation results in a seemingly altruistic behavior. The degree of cooperation is decreasing in anonymity. If reputation is noisy enough, there is no cooperation in equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | Cooperation; Conditioned Strategies; Prisoners Dilemma; Signaling; Reputation; Altruism; Evolutionary Equilibrium |
| JEL: | C70 C72 |
| Date: | 2005–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2005_045&r=evo |
| By: | Ron A. Boschma; Koen Frenken |
| Abstract: | The paper explains the commonalities and differences between neoclassical, institutional and evolutionary approaches that have been influential in economic geography during the last couple of decades. For all three approaches, we argue that they are in agreement in some respects and in conflict in other respects. While explaining to what extent and in what ways the Evolutionary Economic Geography approach differs from the New Economic Geography and the Institutional Economic Geography, we can specify the value-added of economic geography as an evolutionary science. |
| Keywords: | evolutionary economic geography, new economic geography, institutional economic geography |
| JEL: | A12 B20 B25 R0 R1 |
| Date: | 2005–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:0501&r=evo |
| By: | Fritz Rahmeyer (University of Augsburg, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In two survey articles on evolutionary economics Hodgson points out that currently a consensus of opinion concerning the meaning and explanation of economic evolution does not exist. But most of the authors involved agree that the common characteristic of its subject is the central importance of endogenously emerging innovation activity of privately owned enterprises, causing a structured economic and organizational change. Compared with that, there is a lively dispute regarding the question if processes of technical and economic change can be explained analogously to the basic principles of biological evolution. From an economic point of view Schumpeter and Marshall, geared to the level of a single firm, are of great importance for the development of an evolutionary theory of economic change. The path-breaking approach of Nelson and Winter, also based on the significance of innovation activities of firms, but on their behaviour as well, points the way to a micro foundation of evolutionary change and its possible applications, for instance the theory of the firm and Schumpeterian competition. So, after the exposition of Schumpeter and Marshall on discontinous and gradual economic development, a concept of economic evolution following Neo-Darwinian biological evolution is worked out in detail. In that as a result the idea of „Universal Darwinism” is the focus of interest. A population of firms instead of a single firm comes to the fore, according to population thinking in biology. In enlarging the Schumpeter-Marshall model finally an evolutionary theory of innovation activity will be elaborated. |
| Keywords: | Marshall, Schumpeter, biological evolution, economic evolution, innovation activity management |
| JEL: | B30 B52 O31 |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aug:augsbe:0282&r=evo |
| By: | Elin Halvorsen and Thor O. Thoresen (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | Several studies reject the implications of the altruism model. In this study it is argued that parents who transfer resources to their children both are altruistic and influenced by an equal division fairness norm. Under such motives, the degree of income compensation should be stronger in one-child families and we expect the altruism motive to dominate the fairness norm when income differences between siblings are large. The results suggest that equal divisions are intentional and weighted against altruistic motives. |
| Keywords: | inter vivos gifts; altruism; equal sharing; compensatory transfer |
| JEL: | D19 D64 H21 |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:439&r=evo |
| By: | Felipe Balmaceda |
| Abstract: | The present paper proposes a simple model for studying the interplay between self-enforcing cooperation and network formation. In particular, the model provides an answer to the ancient question of how cooperative behavior emerges in different communities and how the possibility of behaving cooperatively shapes the social structure of a community. In a sense, I provide an explanation of how trust, by which I mean the existence of self-sustainable cooperation, can emerge in a society and how the society is shaped by third-party enforcement. |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edj:ceauch:205&r=evo |
| By: | Dr. Martina Eckardt (University of Rostock) |
| Abstract: | Institutions matter both for long-term economic evolution as well as for more short-termed economic performance. The law is particularly important in shaping the institutional framework for economic activities. This paper gives an overview of typical evolutionary explanations of legal change, i.e. the generation and dissemination of legal innovations over time. The main actors, the key determinants, and the central mechanisms are identified. In addition to approaches which deal primarily with statutory respectively judge-made legal change, the concept of legal paradigms and path dependence, the co-evolution of law and technology and the impact of institutional competition on legal change are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Evolutionary Economics, Law and Economics, Judge-made Legal Change, Legis- lation, Technological Change, Path Dependence |
| JEL: | B52 B53 K40 P16 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ros:wpaper:47&r=evo |