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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Ulrich Witt; Christian Schubert |
| Abstract: | Normative reasoning in welfare economics and social contract theory usually presumes invariable, context-independent individual preferences. Following recent work particularly in behavioral economics this assumption is difficult to defend. This paper therefore explores what can be said about preferences and their changes from a motivation-theoretic perspective, i.e. by explaining what motivates economic agents in making their choices and what mechanisms of change are at work here. We show that on this basis it is possible to complement social welfare assessments by a differential weighing of different human motivations which is derived from empirically informed foundations rather than from ad hoc arguments. |
| Keywords: | Preference Change, Welfare, Needs, Subsistence Level, Redistribution Length 31 pages |
| JEL: | D63 O12 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2010-05&r=evo |
| By: | Scott Atran (IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod - CNRS : UMR8129 - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)); Joseph Henrich (Dept of Economics & Dept of Psychology - University of British Columbia) |
| Abstract: | Understanding religion requires explaining why supernatural beliefs, devotions, and rituals are both universal and variable across cultures, and why religion is so often associated with both large-scale cooperation and enduring group conflict. Emerging lines of research suggest that these oppositions result from the convergence of three processes. First, the interaction of certain reliably developing cognitive processes, such as our ability to infer the presence of intentional agents, favors—as an evolutionary by-product—the spread of certain kinds of counterintuitive concepts. Second, participation in rituals and devotions involving costly displays exploits various aspects of our evolved psychology to deepen people's commitment to both supernatural agents and religious communities. Third, competition among societies and organizations with different faith-based beliefs and practices has increasingly connected religion with both within-group prosociality and between-group enmity. This connection has strengthened dramatically in recent millennia, as part of the evolution of complex societies, and is important to understanding cooperation and conflict in today's world. |
| Keywords: | by-product hypothesis, credibility enhancing displays, cultural 40 transmission, cooperation, group competition, high gods,min |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:ijn_00505193_v1&r=evo |
| By: | Fernando Louge (Institute of Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University); Frank Riedel (Institute of Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the evolutionary stability of the unique Nash equilibrium of a first price sealed bid auction. It is shown that the Nash equilibrium is not asymptotically stable under payoff monotonic dynamics for arbitrary initial popu- lations. In contrast, when the initial population includes a continuum of strategies around the equilibrium, the replicator dynamic does converge to the Nash equilibrium. Simulations are presented for the replicator and Brown-von Neumann-Nash dynamics. They suggest that the convergence for the replicator dynamic is slow compared to the Brown-von Neumann-Nash dynamics. |
| JEL: | C73 D44 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:435&r=evo |
| By: | L. Bagnoli; G. Negroni |
| Abstract: | Two parties bargaining over a pie whose size is determined by the investment decisions of both. The bargaining rule is sensitive to the investment behavior. If a symmetric investments profile is observed, bargaining proceeds according to the Nash Demand Game; otherwise bargaining proceeds according to the Ultimatum Game. We are interested in the evolutionary emergence of both an efficient investment norm and a bargaining norm. Under some conditions we prove that these norms co-evolve; when this happens they support the efficient investment and the egalitarian distribution of the surplus. In addition, when surplus requires that at least one agent invests, then either both norms co-evolve or no norm evolves. |
| JEL: | C78 L41 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:710&r=evo |
| By: | Cox, James C. (Georgia State University); Orman, Wafa Hakim (University of Alabama in Huntsville) |
| Abstract: | Trust is a crucial component of social capital. We use an experimental moonlighting game with a representative sample of the U.S. population, oversampling immigrants, to study trust, positive, and negative reciprocity between first-generation immigrants and native-born Americans as a measure of immigrant assimilation. We also survey subjects in order to relate trusting and trustworthy behavior with demographic characteristics and traditional, survey-based measures of social capital. We find that immigrants are as trusting as native-born U.S. citizens when faced with another native-born citizen, but do not trust other immigrants. Immigrants appear to be less trustworthy overall but this finding disappears when we control for demographic variables and the amount sent by the first mover. The length of time an immigrant has been a naturalized U.S. citizen appears to increase trustworthiness but does not affect trusting behavior. Women and older people are less likely to trust, but no more or less trustworthy. |
| Keywords: | moonlighting game, trust, reciprocity, immigration, experiment |
| JEL: | C93 J61 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5063&r=evo |
| By: | Fernando Louge (Institute of Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | This paper considers a two-player game with a one-dimensional continuous strategy. We study the asymptotic stability of equilibria under the replicator dynamic when the support of the initial population is an interval. We find that, under strategic complementarities, Continuously Stable Strategy (CSS) have the desired convergence properties using an iterated dominance argument. For general games, however, CSS can be unstable even for populations that have a continuous support. We present a sufficient condition for convergence based on elimination of iteratively dominated strategies. This condition is more restrictive than CSS in general but equivalent in the case of strategic complementarities. Finally, we offer several economic applications of our results. |
| JEL: | C73 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:436&r=evo |
| By: | Juliette Rouchier (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579); Paola Tubaro (Department of International Business and Economics - University of Greenwich) |
| Abstract: | We aim to identify the conditions under which social influence enables emergence of a shared opinion orientation among members of an organization over time, when membership is subject to continuous but partial turnover. We study an intra-organizational advice network that channels social influence over time, with a flow of joiners and leavers at regular intervals. We have been particularly inspired by a study of the Commercial Court of Paris, a judicial institution whose members are peer-elected businesspeople and are partly replaced every year. We develop an agent-based simulation of advice network evolution which incorporates a model of opinion dynamics based on a refinement of Deuant's relative agreement", combining opinion with a measure of "uncertainty" or openness to social influence. We focus on the effects on opinion of three factors, namely criteria for advisor selection, duration of membership in the organization, and new members' uncertainty. We show that criteria for interlocutor choice matter: a shared opinion is sustained over time if members select colleagues at least as experienced as themselves. Convergence of opinions appears in other congurations too, but the impact of initial opinion fades in time. Duration has an impact to the extent that the longer the time spent in the group, the stronger the possibility for convergence towards a common opinion. Finally, higher uncertainty reinforces convergence while lower uncertainty leads to coexistence of multiple opinions. |
| Keywords: | social influence, advice networks, intra-organizational networks, opinion dynamics, agent-based simulation |
| Date: | 2010–07–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00503193_v1&r=evo |