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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Eric Schniter (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University and Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University); Roman M. Sheremeta (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University and Department of Economics, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University); Timothy W. Shields (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University and Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University) |
| Abstract: | We investigated whether 20 emotional states, reported by 170 participants after participating in a Trust game, were experienced in a patterned way predicted by the “Recalibrational Model” or Valence Models. According to the Recalibrational Model, new information about trust-based interaction outcomes triggers specific sets of emotions. Unlike Valence Models that predict reports of large sets of either positive or negative emotional states, the Recalibrational Model predicts the possibility of conflicted (concurrent positive and negative) emotional states. Consistent with the Recalibrational Model, we observed reports of conflicted emotional states activated after interactions where trust was demonstrated but trustworthiness was not. We discuss the implications of having conflicted goals and conflicted emotional states for both scientific and well-being pursuits. |
| Keywords: | emotion, affect valence, recalibrational theory, Trust game, experiment |
| JEL: | C73 C91 D87 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:13-28&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:unm:unumer:2013019&r=evo |
| By: | Ljunge, Martin (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | This paper finds evidence that more democratic political institutions increase trust. Second generation immigrants with ancestries from 115 countries are studied within 30 European countries. Comparing individuals born and residing in the same country, those whose father was born in a more democratic country express higher trust than those whose father was born in a less democratic country. The results are robust to individual, parental, and ancestral country controls. |
| Keywords: | Trust; Democracy; Political institutions; Cultural transmission; Social capital |
| JEL: | F55 H10 J62 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0988&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:unm:unumer:2013020&r=evo |
| By: | Marco Faillo; Alessandra Smerilli; Robert Sugden |
| Abstract: | Level-k and team reasoning theories, among others, have been used to explain experimental evidence on coordination games. Both theories succeed in explaining some results and both fail in explaining other results. Sometimes it is impossible to discriminate between them. For this reason we propose an experiment with pie games, similar to the ones used by Crawford et al. (2008). We observe subjects playing a series of coordination games, with different configurations of equality and Pareto-dominance, for which it is possible to provide clear predictions derived from both team reasoning and a particular cognitive hierarchy model: level-k theory. In line with previous experimental results, we find that each theory fails to predict observed behaviour in some games. However, because of the design of our experiment, we can go deeper into the matter. Our results show that Pareto dominance, fairness and uniqueness are good predictors for coordination choices. Secondly, we find mixed evidence about level-k and team reasoning theories. In particular team reasoning theory fails to predict choices when they picks out a solution which is Pareto dominated and not compensated by grater equality; Level-k theory fails in games in which it predicts the choice of one of not unique slices, and the unique choice is more equal than the alternative choices. This could represent a step forward to investigate the presence of team reasoning or level-k in coordinating behaviour |
| Keywords: | Coordination games, Focal points, Team reasoning, Level-k theory |
| JEL: | C72 C91 A13 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpce:1306&r=evo |
| By: | Itai Arieli; Robert J. Aumann |
| Abstract: | The logic of backward induction (BI) in perfect information (PI) games has been intensely scrutinized for the past quarter century. A major development came in 2002, when P. Battigalli and M. Sinischalchi (BS) showed that an outcome of a PI game is consistent with common strong belief of utility maximization if and only if it is the BI outcome. Both BS's formulation, and their proof, are complex and deep. We show that the result continues to hold when utility maximization is replaced by a rationality condition that is even more compelling; more important, the formulation and proof become far more transparent, accessible, and self-contained. |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp652&r=evo |
| By: | Roberto Foa (Department of Government, Harvard University. 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA 02138.); Anna Nemirovskaya (Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Vasilievsky Ostrov 3, Line 10, room 308, St Petersburg, Russia); Elena Mostovova (Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Vasilievsky Ostrov 3, Line 10, room 308, St Petersburg, Russia.) |
| Abstract: | One of the attributes most consistently highlighted in the literature on frontier society is the tendency to spontaneous social organisation. However, despite the resilience of the ‘frontier thesis’ within sociology and political science, it has not been subject to a rigorous empirical examination. Does it constitute a description of the social norms and institution of the western United States, or is it one manifestation of a more general ‘frontier phenomenon’, found in other times and places? In order to answer these questions, this article examines data on the nature of social relations in frontier zones in four countries: Brazil, Russia, Canada and the United States. Taking a wide range of survey items, we find that higher levels of voluntary activity, social trust, tolerance of outgroups, and civic protest are distinctive features of frontier life, and not simply a feature of the American historical experience. |
| Keywords: | Social institutions, social capital, settlement patterns, historical institutionalism, frontier thesis |
| JEL: | Z13 N90 R23 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:09/soc/2013&r=evo |
| By: | Cummins, Neil; Clark, Gregory |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a panel of 21,618 people with rare surnames whose wealth is observed at death in England and Wales 1858-2012 to measure the intergeneration elasticity of wealth over five generations. We show, using rare surnames to track families, that wealth is much more persistent over generations than standard one generation estimates would suggest. There is still a significant correlation between the wealth of families five generations apart. We show that this finding can be reconciled with standard estimates of wealth mobility by positing an underlying Markov process of wealth inheritance with an intergenerational elasticity of 0.70-0.75 throughout the years 1858-2012. The enormous social and economic changes of this long period had surprisingly little effect on the strength of inheritance of wealth. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational social mobility; inequality; family economics; education |
| JEL: | N0 I3 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:54513&r=evo |
| By: | Clark, Gregory; Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a panel of 21,618 people with rare surnames whose wealth is observed at death in England and Wales 1858-2012 to measure the intergeneration elasticity of wealth over five generations. We show, using rare surnames to track families, that wealth is much more persistent over generations than standard one generation estimates would suggest. There is still a significant correlation between the wealth of families five generations apart. We show that this finding can be reconciled with standard estimates of wealth mobility by positing an underlying Markov process of wealth inheritance with an intergenerational elasticity of 0.70-0.75 throughout the years 1858-2012. The enormous social and economic changes of this long period had surprisingly little effect on the strength of inheritance of wealth. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational social mobility; inequality; family economics; education |
| JEL: | Z10 N0 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:54515&r=evo |