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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Jean-Philippe Atzenhoffer |
| Abstract: | The Tragedy of the Commons refers to the dissipation of a common- pool ressource when any appropriator has free access to it. Under the behavior of absolute payoff maximisation, the common-pool resource game leads to a Nash equilibrium in which the resource is overexploited. However, some empirical studies show that the overutilization is even larger than the Nash equilibrium predicts. We account for these results in an evolutionary framework. Under an imitation-experimentation dynamics, the long run stable behavior implies a larger exploitation of the resource than in the classical Nash equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | common-pool resource, imitation behavior, evolutionary stable strategy, evolutionary games. |
| JEL: | C73 D41 Q20 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2008-21&r=evo |
| By: | Omar Al-Ubaydli (Department of Economics and Mercatus Center, George Mason University); Min Sok Lee |
| Abstract: | Do people have a stronger propensity to reward or punish? When reacting to intentions, Offerman (2002) concluded that people punish more. Using the Falk and Fischbacher (2006) model, we extend Offerman's design in two ways. First, we control for the strength of the positive/negative intentions to which an individual reacts when rewarding/punishing. Second, we can precisely compare the strength of intention- and distribution-based motives for reward/punishment. Doing so requires measuring second-order expectations of subjects' own behavior, i.e., what a subject predicts that other subjects predict that he will do. Second-order expectations can be elicited directly or they can be induced by telling a subject what others expect him to do.Under elicited second-order expectations, we find that negative reciprocity is stronger than positive reciprocity, though if we isolate the distributional motive for reciprocity, then we find that positive reciprocity is stronger than negative reciprocity. Under induced second-order expectations, positive distributional reciprocity is stronger than negative distributional reciprocity while other forms of reciprocity are equally strong. |
| Keywords: | reciprocity, reward, punishment |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gms:wpaper:1005&r=evo |
| By: | Reuben, Ernesto; Sapienza, Paola; Zingales, Luigi |
| Abstract: | We study experimentally the effect of expectations on trustworthiness. Most subjects respond with untrustworthy behavior if they find out that little is expected from them. This suggests that guilt aversion plays an important role in inducing trustworthiness. |
| Keywords: | trust; trustworthiness; reciprocity; guilt aversion |
| JEL: | C92 Z13 C72 |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10653&r=evo |
| By: | Gerardo Marletto |
| Abstract: | Orthodox economics sees transport as a market which can be made more sustainable by improving its self-regulating capacity. To date this static approach has not been able to limit the growing demand for transport and its increasing environmental impact. Better results might be obtained by using evolutionary and institutional economics. Starting from these theories, a sustainable transport policy should be based on three fundamental considerations. First, transport is not a market, but a sum of systems affected by path-dependence and lock-in phenomena. Second, transport is not sustainable because it is locked in environmentally sub-optimal systems. Third, structural changes in technologies and organisations, institutions, and values are needed to establish more sustainable transport systems. We give an example of the use of an institutional/evolutionary approach to sustainable transport policies in the transition from the system of mass motorisation to the new urban mobility system. |
| Keywords: | Sustainable transportation; Transport policy; Environmental economics; Institutional economics; Evolutionary economics |
| JEL: | B52 Q58 R40 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:200814&r=evo |
| By: | Hongbin Li (Tsinghua University); Mark Rosenzweig (Yale University); Junsen Zhang (Chinese University of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use new survey data on twins born in urban China, among whom many experienced the consequences of the forced mass rustication movement of the Chinese “cultural revolution,” to identify the distinct roles of altruism and guilt in affecting behavior within families. Based on a model depicting the choices of the allocation of parental time and transfers to multiple children incorporating favoritism, altruism and guilt, we show the conditions under which guilt and altruism can be separately identified by experimental variation in parental time with children. Based on within-twins estimates of affected cohorts, we find that parents selected children with lower endowments to be sent down; that parents behaved altruistically, providing more gifts to the sibling with lower earnings and schooling; but also exhibited guilt – given the current state variables of the two children, the child experiencing more years of rustication received significantly higher transfers. |
| Keywords: | guilt, altruism, China |
| JEL: | J12 J13 O12 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egc:wpaper:965&r=evo |