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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Cappelen, Alexander W. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Reme, Bjørn-Atle (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Sørensen, Erik Ø. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Tungodden, Bertil (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | We study whether compensating people who volunteer to be leaders in a public goods game creates a social crowding-out effect of moral motivation among the others in the group. We report from an experiment with four treatments, where the base treatment is a standard public goods game with simultaneous contribution decisions, while the three other treatments allowed participants to volunteer to be an “early contributor” in their group. In the three leader treatments, we manipulate the level of compensation given to the leader. Our main finding is that a moderate compensation to the leader is highly beneficial, it increases the average contribution by almost 80%. A high compensation, however, is detrimental to public good provision. We show that paying a moderate compensation to the leaders strikes the right balance between the need for recruiting leaders and avoiding a large social crowding-out effect. We argue that the main findings of the paper are important in many real life settings where we would like to use economic incentives to encourage people to lead by example. |
| Keywords: | Voluntariness; Group behavior; Public goods; Laoratory. |
| JEL: | C72 C92 H41 |
| Date: | 2013–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2013_010&r=evo |
| By: | Andersson, Ola (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Tyran, Jean-Robert (University of Vienna); Wengström, Erik (University of Copenhagen); Holm, Håkan J. (Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Recent experimental studies suggest that risk aversion is negatively related to cognitive ability. In this paper we report evidence that this relation might be spurious. We recruit a large subject pool drawn from the general Danish population for our experiment. By presenting subjects with choice tasks that vary the bias induced by random choices, we are able to generate both negative and positive correlations between risk aversion and cognitive ability. Structural estimation allowing for heterogeneity of noise yields no significant relation between risk aversion and cognitive ability. Our results suggest that cognitive ability is related to random decision making, rather than to risk preferences. |
| Keywords: | Risk preference; Cognitive ability; Experiment; Noise |
| JEL: | C81 C91 D12 D81 |
| Date: | 2013–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0964&r=evo |
| By: | Grégory Ponthière (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS : UMR8545 - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - Ecole normale supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA), EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris) |
| Abstract: | We use the theory of rationalizable choices to study the survival and the extinction of types (or traits) in evolutionary OLG models. Two properties of evolutionary processes are introduced: rationalizability by a tness ordering (i.e. only the most fit types survive) and interactivity (i.e. a withdrawal of types a effects the survival of other types). Those properties are shown to be logically incompatible. We then examine whether the evolutionary processes at work in canonical evolutionary OLG models satisfy rationalizability or interactivity. We study n-types versions of the evolutionary OLG models of Galor and Moav (2002) and Bisin and Verdier (2001), and show that, while the evolutionary process at work in the former is generally rationalizable by a tness ordering, the opposite is true for the latter, which exhibits, in general, interactivity. |
| Keywords: | Evolutionary OLG models ; Survival ; Extinction ; Fitness or- dering ; Rationalization |
| Date: | 2013–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:hal-00814699&r=evo |
| By: | Marko Pitesa (GEM - Grenoble Ecole de Management - Grenoble École de Management (GEM)); Stefan Thau (LBS - London Business School - London Business School) |
| Abstract: | In this research, we examine when and why organizational environments influence how employees respond to moral issues. Past research proposed that social influences in organizations affect employees' ethical decision making, but did not explain when and why some individuals are affected by the organizational environment and some disregard it. To address this problem, we drew on research on power to propose that power makes people more self-focused, which, in turn, makes them more likely to act upon their preferences and ignore (un)ethical social influences. Using both experimental and field methods, we tested our model across the three main paradigms of social influence: informational influence (Study 1 and 2), normative influence (Study 3), and compliance (Study 4). Results offer converging evidence for our theory. |
| Keywords: | ethical decision making, power, social influences, self-focus |
| Date: | 2013–06–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:gemptp:hal-00814614&r=evo |
| By: | Timothy C. Salmony; Danila Serra |
| Abstract: | We experimentally investigate the extent to which social observability of one’s actions and the possibility of social non-monetary judgment affect the decision to engage in rule breaking behavior. We consider three rule breaking scenarios — theft, bribery and embezzlement — in the absence of any formal enforcement mechanism. By involving a student sample characterized by cultural heterogeneity due to immigration of ancestors to the US, we are able to investigate whether the effectiveness of informal social enforcement mechanisms is conditional on the cultural background of the decision-maker. A total of 52 countries are represented in our sample, ranging from Low Rule of Law countries such as Liberia and Nigeria to High Rule of Law countries such as Sweden and Norway. Our data provide evidence that people with different cultural backgrounds do respond differently to increased social observability of their actions. In particular, while subjects that identify culturally with a High Rule of Law country respond to social obervability and judgment by lowering their propensities to engage in rule breaking, subjects that identify with Low Rule of Law countries do not. Our findings suggest that development policies that rely purely on social judgment to enforce behavior may not work with Low Rule of Law populations. |
| Keywords: | Theft;Corruption; Social Enforcement; Culture; Experiments |
| JEL: | C90 D73 K42 Z10 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2013-05&r=evo |
| By: | Jonas Fooken; Markus Schaffner |
| Abstract: | We study the difference in the result of two different risk elicitation methods by linking estimates of risk attitudes to gender, age, personality traits, a decision in a dilemma situation, and physiological states measured by heart rate variability (HRV). Our results indicate that differences between the methods are reflected in a different effect of gender and personality traits. Furthermore, HRV is linked to risk-taking in the experiment for one of the methods, suggesting that emotionally more stressed individuals display more risk aversion. However, we cannot determine if these are significantly related to the difference on the results of the two methods. Finally, we find that risk attitudes are not predictive of the ability to decide in a dilemma, but personality traits are. There is also no apparent relationship between the physiological state during the dilemma situation and the ability to make a decision. |
| Keywords: | s risk preferences |
| JEL: | D81 D87 |
| Date: | 2013–04–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qut:qubewp:wp010&r=evo |
| By: | Vivika Halapuu (University of Tartu, Estonia); Tiiu Paas (University of Tartu, Estonia); Tiit Tammaru (University of Tartu, Estonia) |
| Abstract: | The paper examines the factors that are related to attitudes towards immigrants in Europe, with a particular focus on the role of institutional trust in shaping these attitudes. We go one step further compared to previous studies by investigating separately two different groups of people — members of the ethnic majority and ethnic minority populations in European countries. We use data from the European Social Survey fourth round database for 27 countries. The main finding is that social trust is important for both groups, while trust in institutions is more strongly related to the attitudes among ethnic majorities. Other biggest differences between members of the ethnic minority and majority population are related to type of area where one lives, human capital and economic factors. The first two are more strongly related to the attitudes towards immigrants for the majority populations, while economic factors (especially labour market status) are more important for the minority populations in European countries. |
| Keywords: | immigration, attitudes, trust in institutions, minority/majority populations |
| JEL: | J61 J15 C31 P51 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2013014&r=evo |
| By: | Cevikarslan, Salih (UNU-MERIT, and SBE, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | The aims of this paper are twofold. The first is to analyse the interaction between research and development (R&D) activities of firms and heterogeneous consumer preferences in structuring the evolution of an industry. The second is to explore the effects of patent life and patent breadth on market outcomes. To answer these research questions, an evolutionary, multi-agent based, sector-level cumulative innovation model is designed. The model addresses supply and demand sides of the market simultaneously with the co-evolution of heterogeneous consumer preferences, heterogeneous firm knowledge bases and technology levels at the micro level. In line with the evolutionary modelling tradition, we have a search algorithm-innovation and imitation of products by firms - a selection of algorithm-revealed preferences of the consumers - and a population of objects in which variation is expressed and on which selection operates: namely, firms (Windrum, 2004). Firms compete on quality and price of their products in an oligopolistic market whereas consumers, constrained by their computational limits, act to maximize their utility with their product choices in a boundedly rational way. There is continuous firm entry and exit depending on the competitive performance of the firms. |
| Keywords: | Patents, industrial dynamics, evolutionary economics, agent-based modelling |
| JEL: | B52 L11 O34 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2013020&r=evo |
| By: | Cevikarslan, Salih (UNU-MERIT, and SBE, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | The aims of this paper are twofold. The first is to analyse the interaction between research and development (R&D) activities of firms and heterogeneous consumer preferences in structuring the evolution of an industry. The second is to explore the heterogeneity in firms' innovation strategies. Is heterogeneity sustainable in the long-term and what happens to the market shares of firms having different innovation strategies when a structural market characteristic (market size) or a behavioural rule (R&D intensity) is changed? To answer these research questions, an evolutionary, multi-agent based, sector-level innovation model is designed. The model addresses supply and demand sides of the market simultaneously with the co-evolution of heterogeneous consumer preferences, heterogeneous firm knowledge bases, and technology levels at the micro level. |
| Keywords: | Heterogeneity, innovation strategies, evolutionary economics, agent-based modelling |
| JEL: | B52 L11 O33 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2013019&r=evo |
| By: | Jørgen Modalsli (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new method for calculating Gini coefficients from tabulations of the mean income of social classes. Income distribution data from before the Industrial Revolution usually come in the form of such tabulations, called social tables. Inequality indices generated from social tables are frequently calculated without adjusting for within-group income dispersion, leading to a systematic downward bias in the reporting of pre-industrial inequality. The correction method presented in this paper is applied to an existing collection of twenty-five social tables, from Rome in AD 1 to India in 1947. The corrections, using a variety of assumptions on within-group dispersion, lead to substantial increases in the Gini coefficients. Combining the inequality levels with data on GDP suggests a positive relationship between income inequality and economic growth. This supports earlier proposals, based on fewer data points, of a “super Kuznets curve” of increasing inequality over the entire pre-industrial period. |
| Keywords: | Pre-industrial inequality; social tables; Kuznets curve; history |
| JEL: | D31 N30 O11 C65 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:734&r=evo |