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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Michalis Drouvelis; Nattavudh Powdthavee |
| Abstract: | What determines people's moral judgments of selfish behaviors? Here we study whether people's normative views in trust and gift exchange games, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance, are themselves functions of positive emotions. We used experimental survey methods to investigate people's moral judgments empirically, and explored whether we could influence subsequent judgments by deliberately making some individuals happier. We found that moral judgments of selfish behaviors in the economic context depend strongly on other people's behaviors, but their relationships are significantly moderated by an increase in happiness for the person making the judgment. |
| Keywords: | Happiness, moral judgments, trust games, gift exchange games |
| JEL: | C91 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1231&r=evo |
| By: | Gautam Gupta; Minhaj Mahmud; Pushkar Maitra; Santanu Mitra; Ananta Neelim |
| Abstract: | It is now well accepted that trust is crucial for economic and social development. There is also evidence that religion strongly affects how individuals act when interacting with others. The same is true of status. Using a field experiment conducted in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, two regions, which are similar in terms of socioeconomic characteristics, ethnicity and language but have different religious composition, this paper examines whether religion or minority status affect trusts among different segments of the population. Our results show that it is minority status rather than religion that drives behavior. In both countries individuals belonging to the minority group (Muslims in West Bengal and Hindus in Bangladesh) exhibit positive in-group bias in trust behavior, while individuals belonging to the majority group in both countries (Hindus in West Bengla and Muslims in Bangladesh) show positive out-group bias in trustworthiness. The driver of this bias is however different across the two countries. Finally we find that the extent of in-group bias is systematically higher for religious individuals than non-religious individuals. |
| Keywords: | Trust, Religion, Status, In-group and Out-group, Field Experiment, South Asia. |
| JEL: | C93 N3 C21 D03 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2013-28&r=evo |
| By: | Nikolaos Georgantzis (LEE & Department of Economics, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain); Juan A. Lacomba (Department of Economics & GLOBE, University of Granada, Spain); Francisco Lagos (Department of Economics & GLOBE, University of Granada, Spain); Juliette Milgram (Department of Economics & GLOBE, University of Granada, Spain) |
| Abstract: | This article examines an intra- and international trust game experiment among Moroccan, French and Spanish subjects. Before making each decision, participants were informed on the nationality of their partner. We find that, overall, subjects from Morocco exhibited a higher level of trust. Furthermore, they were found to trust French subjects more than those from Spain. Regarding reciprocal behavior, subjects from Spain were the least trustworthy. Apart from this, we do not observe any discriminatory patterns from or towards any country. |
| Keywords: | trust, reciprocity, trust game, cross-country, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jau:wpaper:2013/09&r=evo |
| By: | David K. Levine; Salvatore Modica |
| Abstract: | In a model of evolution driven by conflict between societies more powerful states have an advantage. When the influence of outsiders is small we show that this results in a tendency to hegemony. In a simple example in which institutions differ in their “exclusiveness” we find that these hegemonies will be inefficiently “extractive” in the sense of having inefficiently high taxes, high compensation for state officials, and low welfare. |
| Keywords: | Game theory |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2013-023&r=evo |
| By: | Fehr, Dietmar; Huck, Steffen |
| Abstract: | We introduce the notion of strategic awareness in experimental games which captures the idea that subjects realize they are playing a game and thus have to form beliefs about others' actions in order to play well. The concept differs from both, rule understanding and rationality. We then turn to experimental evidence from a beauty contest game where we elicit measures of cognitive ability and beliefs about others' cognitive ability. We show that the effect of cognitive ability is highly non-linear. Subjects' behavior below a certain threshold is indistinguishable from uniform random play and does not correlate with beliefs about others ability. In contrast, choices of subjects who exceed the threshold avoid dominated choices and react very sensitively to beliefs about others cognitive ability. -- In vielen Situationen spielt das Bewusstsein über strategische Komponenten eine wichtige Rolle. In diesem kurzen Artikel führen wir das Konzept von strategic awareness in Experimenten ein. Dieses neue Konzept beschreibt die Fähigkeit von Experimentteilnehmer, strategische Situationen zu erkennen und daher Erwartungen über das Verhalten von anderen zu bilden. Das Konzept unterscheidet sich sowohl von Rationalität als auch vom bloßen Verstehen von den Regeln eines Experiments. Wir demonstrieren das Konzept empirisch mit Hilfe von Daten eines Beauty Contest Games, in dem wir die kognitiven Fähigkeiten der Teilnehmer und ihre Einschätzungen über die kognitiven Fähigkeiten der anderen Teilnehmer erheben. Die Resultate zeigen, dass kognitive Fähigkeiten einen starken nichtlinearen Effekt auf die Entscheidungen in dem Beauty Contest Game haben. Das Verhalten von Experimentteilnehmer, die unter einer bestimmten Schwelle liegen, kann nicht von zufälligen Entscheidungen unterschieden werden und korreliert auch nicht mit deren Einschätzung über die kognitiven Fähigkeiten der anderen Teilnehmer. Im Gegensatz dazu vermeiden Teilnehmer, die über dieser Schwelle liegen, dominierte Entscheidungen und basieren ihre Entscheidungen auf ihrer Einschätzung über die kognitiven Fähigkeiten der anderen Teilnehmer. |
| Keywords: | strategic awareness,cognitive ability,beauty contest |
| JEL: | C7 C9 D0 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbeoc:spii2013306&r=evo |
| By: | Johannes C. Buggle |
| Abstract: | Do legal institutions affect norms of cooperation? Using the introduction of the Code Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars in Germany as a historical experiment, I show that a positive shock to the quality of legal institutions can increase social-capital long-lastingly. I find that individuals living in regions where the Code Napoleon was used display higher levels of interpersonal trust in the data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). This result holds true conditional on past development levels, as well as in a less heterogeneous border sample, separating regions that applied the Code Napoleon from those that did not. Artificially moving the border and comparing regional pre-treatment characteristics support the interpretation of a causal treatment effect. In addition, I show immediate effects of the Code Civil on novel measures of 19th century social capital. The analysis of historical employment data furthermore suggests economic cooperation to be a potential mechanism for the relationship between legal institutions and social capital. |
| Keywords: | Institutions, Long-Term Persistence, Social Capital |
| JEL: | N43 O10 P48 Z10 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp566&r=evo |
| By: | Heller, Yuval |
| Abstract: | A leading solution concept in the evolutionary study of extensive-form games is Selten's (1983) (selten1983evolutionary) notion of limit ESS. We demonstrate that a limit ESS does not imply neutral stability, and that it may be dynamically unstable (almost any small perturbation takes the population away). These problems arise due to an implicit assumption that “mutants” are arbitrarily rare relative to “trembling” incumbents. Finally, we present a novel definition that solves this issue and has appealing properties. |
| Keywords: | Limit ESS, evolutionary stability, extensive-form games. |
| JEL: | C73 |
| Date: | 2013–07–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48160&r=evo |