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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Newton, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | The ability to share intentions and adjust one's choices in collaboration with others is a fundamental aspect of human nature. We discuss the forces that would have acted for and against the evolution of this ability for a large class of dilemmas and coordination problems that would have been faced by our hominin ancestors. In contrast to altruism and other non-fitness maximizing preferences, the ability to share intentions proliferates when rare without requiring repeated interaction or assortativity in matching. |
| Keywords: | Evolution, shared intentions, norm |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:syd:wpaper:2015-05&r=evo |
| By: | Strulik, Holger |
| Abstract: | This paper integrates a simple theory of identity choice into a framework of endogenous economic growth to explain how secularization can be both cause and consequence of economic development. A secular identity allows an individual to derive more pleasure from consumption than religious individuals, leading secular individuals to work harder and to save more in order to experience this pleasure from consumption. These activities are conducive to economic growth. Higher income makes consumption more affordable and increases the appeal of a secular identity for the next generation. An extension of the basic model investigates the Protestant Reformation as an intermediate stage during the take-off to growth. Another extension introduces intergenerationally dependent religious preferences and demonstrates how a social multiplier amplifies the speed of secularization. |
| Keywords: | economic growth,religion,identity,productivity,secularization,comparative development |
| JEL: | N30 O10 O40 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:234&r=evo |
| By: | Elsner, Wolfram |
| Abstract: | Policy implications of complexity economics (CE) are investigated. CE deals with “Complex Adaptive (Economic) Systems” [CA(E)S], generally characterized by mechanisms and properties such as “emergence” of structure or some capacity of “self-organization”. With this, CE has manifold affinities with economic heterodoxies. CE has developed into a most promising economic research program in the last decades. With some time lag, and boosted by the financial crisis and Great Recession, a surge to explore their policy implications recently emerged. It demonstrated the flaws of the “neoliberal” policy prescriptions mostly derived from the neoclassical mainstream and its underlying more simplistic and teleological equilibrium models. However, most of the complexity-policy literature still remains rather general. For a subset of CA(E)S, those with heterogeneous human agents interacting, particularly on networks, using evolutionary games in the “evolution-of-cooperation” tradition, therefore, we exemplarily derive more specific policy orientations and tools, and a framework policy approach called Interactive Policy. |
| Keywords: | Economic complexity; complex adaptive (economic) systems; equilibrium modeling; self-organization; structural emergence; microfoundations; social-dilemma games; evolution of cooperation; economic policy; regulation; institutional design; recognized interdependence; futurity; rime horizons; network structures; interactive/institutional policy; meritorics; pragmatism; negotiated economy. |
| JEL: | B4 B5 C72 D02 H4 P41 |
| Date: | 2015–03–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:63252&r=evo |
| By: | MADDALONI, Domenico (CELPE - Centre of Labour Economics and Economic Policy, University of Salerno - Italy) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we propose an ecological and evolutionary model for the historical comparative analysis of some major changes in national public welfare systems. In section 1 the essential features of the conceptual framework are outlined, by shortly reviewing some recent works developed by scholars that are working in an ecological, evolutionary or historical-comparative perspective. Sections 2-4 are devoted to an application of the model to the analysis of, respectively, the advent, growth and recent downtrend of national public welfare systems. The analysis shows the role played by changes in military technology and organization in influencing the change of state structures – at first towards the provision of public transfers and services for citizens’ welfare, more recently instead quite in the opposite direction. The aim of the paper is to show the usefulness of an ecological and evolutionary thinking in this field of study, by highlighting aspects so far hardly considered in the historical development of welfare systems. |
| Keywords: | Welfare; International relations; Social and econoc stratification; Public policy |
| JEL: | F50 I30 Z13 Z18 |
| Date: | 2014–12–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sal:celpdp:0132&r=evo |
| By: | Cevikarslan S. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | RD collaborations have increasingly attracted the attention of both academic and business circles in the last couple of decades. Several empirical studies have concentrated on the firms incentives to participate in these collaborations. This paper presents an alternative approach to RD collaborations using an evolutionary, multi-agent based and sector-level RD model. The model will firstly be used to simulate the evolution of an RD driven market composed of profit-driven firms and boundedly rational consumers. Next, frequently discussed research questions in the relevant empirical literature will be explored. This modelling exercise will extend beyond a basic confirmation/rejection of these research questions by showing that the way a firm is defined as an RD collaborator has a significant effect on research results. |
| Keywords: | Current Heterodox Approaches: Institutional; Evolutionary; Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; |
| JEL: | B52 L11 O31 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2015007&r=evo |
| By: | Wang L.; Coccia M. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | Frame and Carpenter 1979 analysed the pattern of international research collaboration among scientific fields in 1970s. Starting from this pioneering work, this paper investigates international collaborations over 1997-2012 and compares the critical results with earlier studies to detect the evolution of collaboration patterns in different scientific fields. Empirical analysis supports two vital findings, given by a a relatively stable structure of international research collaborations over time across different scientific fields; b a convergent process of collaboration patterns between theoretical and applied research fields. One important deter-minant of the latter result might be due to the increasing interdisciplinary nature of research fields that supports the convergence between basic and applied sciences. |
| Keywords: | Economic History: General; Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913; Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: Pre-1913; Economic Development: General; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; Technological Change: Other; |
| JEL: | O31 O39 O10 N00 N31 N33 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2015011&r=evo |
| By: | Tamilina, Larysa; Tamilina, Natalya |
| Abstract: | This article explains the peculiarities of institutional effects on growth rates in post-communist countries. By proposing a certain dependence of the institution-growth nexus on the nature of institutional emergence, the distinction between revolutionary and evolutionary processes of institution formation is introduced. Theoretical and empirical juxtapositions show that transition countries’ institutions which are constructed revolutionarily differ from those that emerge evolutionarily in a twofold manner in their relationship to growth. Growth rates of their economies are less likely to depend on the quality of economic institutions and are more likely to be a function of the maturity of political institutions. In addition, economic institutions in post-communist countries are a product of the quality of political bodies to a greater extent than their evolutionary alternatives. |
| Keywords: | Economic Growth, Formal Institutions, Institutional Formation, Institutional Change, Post-Communist Countries |
| JEL: | O17 O43 O57 P26 P37 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:63170&r=evo |