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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Alger, Ingela; Weibull, Jörgen |
| Abstract: | We provide a generalized definition of evolutionary stability of heritable types in arbitrarily large symmetric interactions under random matching that may be assortative. We establish stability results when these types are strategies in games, and when they are preferences or moral values in games under incomplete information. We show that a class of moral preferences, with degree of morality equal to the index of assortativity are evolutionarily stable. In particular, selfishness is evolutionarily unstable when there is positive assortativity in the matching process. We establish that evolutionarily stable strategies are the same as those played in equilibrium by rational but partly morally motivated individuals, individuals with evolutionarily stable preferences. We provide simple and operational criteria for evolutionary stability and apply these to canonical examples. |
| Keywords: | Evolutionary stability, assortativity, morality, homo moralis, public goods, contests, helping, Cournot competition. |
| JEL: | C73 D01 D03 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:28319&r=evo |
| By: | Oded Galor; Omer Ozak |
| Abstract: | This research explores the origins of the distribution of time preference across regions. It advances the hypothesis, and establishes empirically, that geographical variations in the incentives to delay consumption in favor of lucrative investment opportunities have had a persistent effect on the distribution of long-term orientation across societies. In particular, exploiting a natural experiment associated with the Columbian Exchange, the research establishes that agro-climatic characteristics in the pre-industrial era that were conducive to higher return to agricultural investment, triggered selection and learning processes that had a persistent positive effect on the prevalence of long-term orientation in the contemporary era. |
| Keywords: | Time preference, Delayed Gratiffcation, Culture, Agriculture, Economic Development, Evolution |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2014-5&r=evo |
| By: | Ager, Philipp; Ciccone, Antonio |
| Abstract: | Building on the idea that religious communities provide mutual insurance against some idiosyncratic risks, we argue that religious membership is more valuable in societies exposed to greater common risk. In our empirical analysis we exploit rainfall risk as a source of common economic risk in the nineteenth-century United States and show that religious communities were larger in counties where they faced greater rainfall risk. The link between rainfall risk and the size of religious communities is stronger in counties that were more agricultural, that had lower population densities, or that were exposed to greater rainfall risk during the growing season. |
| Keywords: | Religious community size , agricultural risk , informal insurance |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnh:wpaper:36848&r=evo |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Matthew O. Jackson |
| Abstract: | We examine the interplay between social norms and the enforcement of laws. Agents choose a behavior (e.g., tax evasion, production of low-quality products, corruption, substance abuse, etc.) and then are randomly matched with another agent. An agent's payoff decreases with the mismatch between her behavior and her partner's, as well as average behavior in society. A law is an upper bound (cap) on behavior and a law-breaker, when detected, pays a fine and has her behavior forced down to the level of the law. Law-breaking depends on social norms because detection relies, at least in part, on private cooperation and whistle-blowing. Law-abiding agents have an incentive to whistle-blow because this reduces the mismatch with their partner's behavior as well as the overall negative externality. When laws are in conflict with norms so that many agents are breaking the law, each agent anticipates little whistle-blowing and is more likely to also break the law. Tighter laws (banning more behaviors) have counteracting effects, reducing behavior among law-abiding individuals but inducing more law-breaking. Greater fines for law breaking and better public enforcement reduce the number of law-breakers and behavior among law-abiding agents, but increase levels of law breaking among law-breakers (who effectively choose their behavior targeting other high-behavior law-breakers). Within a dynamic version of the model, we show that laws that are in strong conflict with prevailing social norms may backfire, while gradual tightening of laws can be more effective by changing social norms. |
| JEL: | C72 C73 P16 Z1 |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20369&r=evo |
| By: | Daniel Vaughan |
| Abstract: | I propose a model of cultural transmission where children interact strategically with each other with the only desire to fit in, and parents purposefully socialize their children to their own culture. In the empirical section I estimate parental and peer effects using US teenager data on religious attitudes and alcohol consumption from the Add Health study. I find that, controlling for individual and school observables, children attitudes are a weighted average of their parents' and peers' attitudes, with the latter generally dominating. I then show that these are stable in time with now signs of fading away in the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Finally, the comparative statics allow me to separate endogenous from exogenous parental effects. |
| Keywords: | Cultural transmission, endogenous preferences, Add Health study, preference for conformity, endogenous socialization |
| JEL: | D19 J13 J15 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2013-04&r=evo |
| By: | Bruno Lanz; Simon Dietz; Tim Swanson (Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) |
| Abstract: | We study the interactions between global population, technological progress, per capita income, the demand for food, and agricultural land expansion over the period 1960 to 2100. We formulate a two-sector Schumpeterian growth model with a Barro-Becker representation of endogenous fertility. A manufacturing sector provides a consumption good and an agricultural sector provides food to sustain contemporaneous population. Total land area available for agricultural production is finite, and the marginal cost of agricultural land conversion is increasing with the amount of land already converted, creating a potential constraint to population growth. Using 1960 to 2010 data on world population, GDP, total factor productivity growth and crop land area, we structurally estimate the parameters determining the cost of fertility, technological progress and land conversion. The model closely fits observed trajectories, and we employ the model to make projections from 2010 to 2100. Our results suggest a population slightly below 10 billion by 2050, further growing to 12 billion by 2100. As population and per capita income grow, the demand for agricultural output increases by almost 70% in 2050 relative to 2010. However, agricultural land area stabilizes by 2050 at roughly 10 percent above the 2010 level: growth in agricultural output mainly relies on technological progress and capital accumulation. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth; Population projections; Technological progress; Endogenous fertility; Endogenous innovations; Land conversion; Food security |
| JEL: | O11 O13 J11 C53 C61 Q15 Q24 |
| Date: | 2014–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:ciesrp:cies_rp_25&r=evo |