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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Coenen, Michael; Jovanovic, Dragan |
| Abstract: | We analyze a constrained dictator game in which the dictator splits a pie which will be subsequently created through simultaneous investments by herself and the recipient. We consider two treatments by varying the maximum attainable size of the pie leading to either high or low investment incentives. We find that constrained dictators and recipients invest less than a model with self-interested players would predict. While the splitting decisions of constrained dictators correspond to the theoretical predictions when investment incentives are high, they are more selfish when investment incentives are low. Overall, team productivity is negatively affected by lower investment incentives. -- |
| Keywords: | Bargaining Game,Dictator Game,Investment Incentives,Team Production |
| JEL: | C72 C91 D01 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:77&r=evo |
| By: | Bhirombhakdi, Kornpob; Potipiti, Tanapong |
| Abstract: | This study experimentally tests the performance in predicting decisions of a reciprocity model that was proposed by Dufwenberg et al. (2004). By applying a new approach, the study directly and individually predicts a subject's future decision from his past decision. The prediction performance is measured by the rate of correct predictions (accuracy) and the gain in the rate of the correct predictions (informativeness). Six scenarios of trust game are used to test the model's performance. Further, we compare the performance of the model with two other prediction methods; one method uses a decision in a dictator game to predict a decision in a trust game; the other uses personal information including IQ-test scores, personal attitudes and socio-economic factors. Seventy-nine undergraduate students participated in this hand-run experimental study. The results show that the reciprocity model has the best performance when compared with other prediction methods. |
| Keywords: | Reciprocity; Kindness; Performance; Trust Game |
| JEL: | C71 C91 |
| Date: | 2012–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:42326&r=evo |
| By: | Vieider, Ferdinand M.; Chmura, Thorsten; Martinsson, Peter |
| Abstract: | We measure risk attitudes in 30 different countries in a controlled, incentivized experiment (N = 3025). At the macroeconomic level, we find a strong and highly significant negative correlation between the risk tolerance of a country and income per capita. This gives rise to a paradox, seen that risk tolerance has been found to be positively associated with personal income within countries. We show that this paradox can be explained by unified growth theory. These results are consistent with the prediction that risk attitudes act as a transmission mechanism for growth by encouraging entrepreneurship. Furthermore, our study shows that risk attitudes vary considerably between countries and that for typical experimental stakes, risk seeking or neutrality is just as frequent as risk aversion. -- |
| Keywords: | risk attitudes,cultural comparison,economic growth,comparative development |
| JEL: | D01 D03 D81 E02 O10 O11 O12 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbrad:spii2012401&r=evo |
| By: | Cécile Bazart (LAMETA, University of Montpellier I, France); Aurélie Bonein (University of Rennes 1 - CREM UMR CNRS 6211, France) |
| Abstract: | Reciprocity considerations are important to the tax compliance problem as they may explain the global dynamics of tax evasion, beyond individual tax evasion decisions, toward a downward or upward spiral. To provide evidence on reciprocity in tax compliance decisions, we have conducted a laboratory experiment in which we introduced two types of inequities. The first type of inequity is called vertical, because it refers to inequities introduced by the government when it sets different fiscal parameters for identical taxpayers, while the second type of inequity is called horizontal because it refers to the fact that taxpayers may differ in tax compliance decisions. In this setting, taxpayers may react to a disadvantageous or advantageous inequity through negative or positive reciprocal behaviors, respectively. Our results support the existence of negative and positive reciprocity in both vertical and horizontal cases. When both inequities come into play and may induce reciprocal behaviors in opposite directions, the horizontal always dominates the vertical. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral economics; Experimental economics; Fairness; Tax evasion; Tax compliance |
| JEL: | H26 C91 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cremwp:201239&r=evo |
| By: | Constant, Amelie F. (George Washington University, Temple University); Zimmermann, Klaus F. (IZA and University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | In the Western world, multiculturalism has become the way to view and form "nationhood," igniting the interest to understand and model identity. The complexity of identity formation, however, has been firm and ethnic and national identities have been deviating more and more. In this paper, we seek to investigate the nature, role and relationships between ethnic and national identities by using migrants as the natural innovators. The arrival of immigrants can amplify social challenges and both natives and immigrants can see their identities altering and evolving. Individuals in a country can be patriotic, nationalistic, indifferent, apathetic, or subvert and undermining. The openness of the people in the host country, their embracing of new cultures and their respect towards newcomers can play a major role in how immigrants react and how close they remain with the country of origin. The laws of the host country together with the ideals, the self-understanding and the foundation of the sovereign nation can also affect the identities of immigrants and natives at the individual level and at the nation-building level. We present empirical results concerning ethnic and national identities and we discuss the ramifications of the divergence between them. We review surveys and experimental contributions to the study of identity formation and its consequences for economic behavior. Before we conclude we debate the endogeneity issue of identity. |
| Keywords: | international migration, economic nationalism, colonialism, economics of minorities, ethnic identity, national identity, cultural economics |
| JEL: | F22 F52 F54 F59 J15 J16 Z10 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7020&r=evo |
| By: | Aoki, Masahiko (Asian Development Bank Institute) |
| Abstract: | This essay provides a game-theoretic, endogenous view of institutions, and then applies the idea to identify the sources of institutional trajectories of economic development in China, Japan, and Korea. It stylizes the Malthusian-phase of East Asian economies as peasant-based economies in which small families allocated their working time between farming on small plots—leased or owned—and handcrafting for personal consumption and markets. It then compares institutional arrangements across these economies that sustained otherwise similar economies. It characterizes the varied nature of the political states of Qing China, Tokugawa Japan, and Yi Korea by focusing on the way in which agricultural taxes were enforced. It also identifies different patterns of social norms of trust that were institutional complements to, or substitutes for, political states. Finally, it traces the path-dependent transformations of these state-norm combinations along subsequent transitions to post-Malthusian phases of economic growth in the respective economies. |
| Keywords: | china; japan; institutional complementarity; institutional change; capitalism; varieties of norms; political economy |
| JEL: | O43 O53 P51 |
| Date: | 2012–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0397&r=evo |
| By: | Annette Freyberg-inan (AISSR, Universiteit van Amsterdam); Ruya Kocer (Universiteit van Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | In his “Anecdote Concerning the Lowering of Productivity”, written in 1963, the West-German writer Heinrich Böll humorously contrasts the mindset of an enterprising capitalist, bent on the maximization of profit, with that of a person we might call a profit “satisficer,” a maximizer of leisure or happiness, or, less politely, a bum. The anecdote is suggestive, as it leaves the reader wondering whose behavior is in fact rational, or whether we observe here a clash of two rationalities supported by different economic cultures and (un)explained by different theories of economic behavior. Motivated by the question whose behavior makes which sort of sense, we present in this paper a system of utility functions that captures both logics of action simultaneously using purely rational choice based reasoning. The three formulas are integrated into a single and simple dynamic equations system which allows us to identify key factors in the generation of utilities explaining the real-life diversity of work-leisure decisionmaking, in particular the impact of occupational dynamics, personality characteristics, and government intervention. The model sheds considerable light on the familiar yet under-investigated phenomenon of widely varying levels of what Böll calls “Arbeitsmoral,” is interestingly rendered in the English translation as “productivity,” and what has rarely been acknowledged for what it is: differences in choices on work-leisure trade-offs and economic lifestyles that pose an important challenge to mainstream microeconomic, welfare state, and development theory. |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aia:aiaswp:123&r=evo |