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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Butler, Jerey V.; Conzo, Pierluigi; Leroch, Martin A. (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Third party punishment is crucial for sustaining cooperative behavior. Still, little is known about its determinants. In this paper we use laboratory experiments to investigate a long-conjectured interaction between group identication and bystanders' punishment preferences using a novel measure of these preferences. We induce minimal groups and give a bystander the opportunity to punish the perpetrator of an unfair act against a defenseless victim. We elicit the bystander's valuation for punishment in four cases: when the perpetrator, the victim, both or neither are members of the bystander's group. We generate testable predictions about the rank order of punishment valuations from a simple framework incorporating group-contingent preferences for justice which are largely conrmed. Finally, we conduct control sessions where groups are not induced. Comparing punishment across treatment and control suggests that third-party punishers tend to treat others as in-group members unless otherwise divided. |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201329&r=evo |
| By: | Zumbühl, Maria (ROA, Maastricht University); Dohmen, Thomas (University of Bonn); Pfann, Gerard A. (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | We study empirically whether there is scope for parents to shape the economic preferences and attitudes of their children through purposeful investments. We exploit information on the risk and trust attitudes of parents and their children, as well as rich information about parental efforts in the upbringing of their children from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study. Our results show that parents who invest more in the upbringing of their children are more similar to them with respect to risk and trust attitudes and thus transmit their own attitudes more strongly. The results are robust to including variables on the relationship between children and parents, family size, and the parents' socioeconomic background. |
| Keywords: | risk preferences, trust, intergenerational transmission, cultural transmission, social mobility, GSOEP |
| JEL: | D1 D8 J13 J62 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7476&r=evo |
| By: | Steven Gazzillo (Rutgers University); Barry Sopher (Rutgers University); Athena Aktipis (Arizona State University); Lee Cronk (Rutgers University) |
| Abstract: | Controversy exists about the act of giving as altruistic instead of self-interested behavior. Each side of this argument interprets similar results from similar experiments in different ways. One side argues the results show that the appearance of altruistic behavior can be explained by self-interested motives. The other side argues these results are evidence of group selection,where a group member takes an action that is harmful to itself but benefi cial to the group. We consider this question using a novel approach. We create a rich experimental environment in which subjects have the ability to cooperate to improve the group's outcome by sharing their wealth in non-compulsory, non-enforceable risk-sharing arrangements. We find that average subject behavior appears to be motivated by self-interest more than group survival. |
| Keywords: | risk sharing, experiment, resource management |
| JEL: | C9 D8 |
| Date: | 2013–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rut:rutres:201302&r=evo |
| By: | Behrooz Hassani-Mahmooei , Behrooz; Vahabi, Mehrdad |
| Abstract: | Borrowing from public choice literature, while aristocratic civil wars can be regarded as anarchy, and the monopoly of violence by the state as Leviathan, duel of honor is an orderly anarchy. The sudden or gradual withering of duel of honor as an institution marks the transition to the monopoly of violence by the state in Europe. In this paper, we endeavor to capture this transition by introducing a computational model where a simulated agent considers three sets of factors to make its dueling decision: 1) its own characteristics such as dueling skill; 2) its identity such as the reaction received from other members of its own social group; and finally 3) the reaction of the authority such as the possible punishment that could be inflicted by the state against dueler. These factors then interact through a dynamic utility function affected by both optimization and learning processes. The results of our agent-based computational model which are validated against the historical evidence from England, France, and Germany show that a complex, aggregative historical process may be consistently explained on the basis of rational choice of heterogeneous individual agents conditioned by their group identity and authority (organizational) influence. |
| Keywords: | Agent-based Computational Economics, Conflict theory, Duel of honor, Identity Economics, Orderly anarchy |
| JEL: | C6 C63 D2 D7 D74 N43 P16 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48219&r=evo |
| By: | Antonelli, Cristiano (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Evolutionary economics has finally recognized the limits of biological analogies and is now able to apply the tools of complexity analysis. A better appreciation of the Schumpeterian legacy can help building better foundations to this new phase of evolutionary economics. The paper uncovers the merits of the essay “The creative response in economic history” published by Joseph Alois Schumpeter in the Journal of Economic History in 1947 and forgotten since then. The correct appreciation of this Schumpeterian contribution is important not only to better understand the evolution of Schumpeter’s thinking but also to elaborate a more inclusive and robust framework able to integrate the contributions of the Classical School and the Marshallian traditions as well as the tools of historical economics so as to implement the new emerging evolutionary complexity. |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201326&r=evo |
| By: | Marco Faravelli; Luca Stanca |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a direct test of the hypothesis that agents' objective functions are non-separable in economic incentives and social preferences. We study experimentally fixed-prize contests using a 2x2 design, varying orthogonally the degree of competition of the incentive mechanism (all-pay auction vs. lottery) and the presence or absence of social returns to bidding (rent seeking vs. public good). The results indicate that either stronger competition or positive social returns have positive main effects on bids. In addition, we find a negative interaction between the all-pay auction mechanism and the public good environment, leading us to reject separability. This finding provides causal evidence that economic incentives may negatively affect pro-social behavior. |
| Keywords: | Contests, Public goods, Rent-seeking, Social preferences, Separability, Laboratory experiments |
| JEL: | C91 D44 H41 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:250&r=evo |
| By: | Becchetti, Leonardo; Corrado, Luisa; Conzo, Pierluigi (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | We provide non experimental evidence of the relevance of sociability on subjective wellbeing by investigating the determinants of life satisfaction on a large sample of Europeans aged above 50. We document that voluntary work, religious attendance, helping friends/neighbours and participation to community-related organizations affect positively and significantly life satisfaction. We illustrate the different impact that some sociability variables have on eudaimonic versus cognitive measures of subjective wellbeing. Our empirical findings discriminate among other regarding and self-regarding preferences as rationales explaining such behaviour. We document that different combinations between actions and motivations have different impact on life satisfaction thereby providing support for the relevance of these specific “contingent goods” and to the literature of procedural utility. Our findings are confirmed in robustness checks including refinements of the dependent variable, instrumental variables and sensitivity an alysis on departures from the exogeneity assumption. |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201314&r=evo |
| By: | Gigante, Anna Azzurra |
| Abstract: | By investigating the connection between mind working and institutional processes, Institutional Cognitive Economics turns out to be the most appropriate in order to overcome some limits in New Institutional Economics. This leads us to develop further this approach. This paper integrates F. Hayek’s theory on knowledge production and A. Bandura’s social cognitive theory with the fertile contributions coming from Self-Organization approach and cognitive path-dependence, by considering also the recent cognitive acquisitions in D. North’s analysis. Then, it proposes a further development. Learning process is broken into smaller sub-processes, each of them is investigated through new analytical tools coming from cognitive psychology and neurobiology. They are T. Higgins’s extension of social cognitive theory and semantic priming concept. These mechanisms clarify well reinforcement and evolution processes of institutional norms, while their genesis finds a convincing explanation in social representations’ theory, as it was formulated by S. Moscovici, which investigates the imaginative dimension ordering perceived data before they are processed into new knowledge. |
| Keywords: | cognitive path-dependence; institutions; knowledge activation/use; semantic priming; social cognitive theory; social representation. |
| JEL: | A12 B25 |
| Date: | 2013–07–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48278&r=evo |
| By: | Gilberto Tadeu Lima; Jaylson Jair da Silveira |
| Abstract: | We provide evolutionary game-theoretic microfoundations to a dynamic complete nominal adjustment in response to a monetary shock. To this end, we develop an approach based on a new analytical notion to which we refer as boundedly rational inattentiveness. We investigate the behavior of the price level in an context in which a firm can either pay a cost to update its information set and establish the optimal price (Nash strategy) or freely use information from the previous period and establish a lagged optimal price (bounded rationality strategy). We devise an evolutionary micro-dynamics that, by interacting to the dynamics of the aggregate variables, determines the co-evolution of the distribution of information-updating strategies in the population of firms and the extent of the nominal adjustment of the general price level to a monetary shock. Although the bounded rationality strategy is the only survivor in the long-run evolutionary equilibrium, money is nonetheless neutral. The evolutionary learning dynamics takes the information-updating process to an equilibrium configuration in which, despite all firms play the bounded rationality strategy, the corresponding price level is the symmetric Nash equilibrium price. |
| Keywords: | bounded rationality; evolutionary dynamics; monetary neutrality |
| JEL: | E31 C73 D83 |
| Date: | 2013–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2013wpecon3&r=evo |
| By: | Yann Algan (Department of Economics, Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Camille Hémet (Department of Economics, Sciences Po - Sciences Po, AMSE - Aix-Marseille School of Economics - Aix-Marseille Univ. - Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] - Ecole Centrale Marseille (ECM)); David Laitin (Department of Political Science, Stanford University - Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | This paper demonstrates the effects of ethnic diversity on social relationships and the quality of public spaces at a very finite neighborhood level. We use detailed block level data on diversity and housing quality from a representative survey on housing in France. We show how and to what extent diversity within a neighborhood can directly affect household well-being and the quality of the common spaces, whereas the previous literature looks at more aggregate outcomes through voting channels. Our identification strategy relies on the exogeneity of public housing allocations with respect to ethnic characteristics in France, to address the bias due to endogenous residential sorting. Diversity is shown to have a negative effect on the quality of local public goods, either due to vandalism, not deterred by other-regarding preferences and social policing, or due to collective action failure to ensure effective property management. However, we find that diversity has no robust effect on public safety at a local level and, if anything, is more related to social anomie. |
| Keywords: | diversity; neighborhood effects; living conditions; public housing |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00843173&r=evo |
| By: | David Crainich (CNRS-LEM and IESEG School of Management); Louis Eeckhoudt (IESEG School of Management (LEM-CNRS) and and CORE (Université Catholique de Louvain)); Olivier Le Courtois (EM Lyon Business School) |
| Abstract: | The concept of absolute risk aversion proposed by K. Arrow (1965) and J. Pratt (1964) and the assumption that it is decreasing in wealth has played a central role in the analysis of risky choices. Ten years later S. Richard (1975) defined correlation aversion in the framework of bivariate utility functions. Surprisingly however the measure of the intensity of correlation aversion has received so far almost no attention. In this paper we define an index of (absolute) correlation aversion and stress some of its properties. Besides we show how the assumption that it is decreasing in wealth generates new results for the analysis of risky choices under bivariate utility. Finally we indicate how these notions can be extended to higher orders of risk attitudes. |
| Keywords: | Correlation aversion |
| JEL: | D81 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ies:wpaper:e201312&r=evo |