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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Oded Galor (Brown University); Ömer Özak (Southern Methodist University); Assaf Sarid (Brown University) |
| Abstract: | This research explores the geographical origins of the coevolution of cultural and linguistic traits in the course of human history, relating the geographical roots of long-term orientation to the structure of the future tense, the agricultural determinants of gender bias to the presence of sex-based grammatical gender, and the ecological origins of hierarchical orientation to the existence of politeness distinctions. The study advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that: (i) variations in geographical characteristics that were conducive to higher natural return to agricultural investment contributed to the existing cross-language variations in the structure of the future tense, (ii) the agricultural determinants of gender gap in agricultural productivity fostered the existence of sex-based grammatical gender, and (iii) the ecological origins of hierarchical societies triggered the emergence of politeness distinctions. |
| Keywords: | Comparative Development, Cultural Evolution, Language Structure, Future Tense, Politeness Distinctions, Long-Term Orientation, Grammatical Gender, Gender Bias, Hierarchy, Emergence of States |
| JEL: | D01 D03 I25 J16 J24 O1 O10 O11 O12 O40 O43 O44 Z10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smu:ecowpa:1801&r=evo |
| By: | Iyigun, Murat; Nunn, Nathan; Qian, Nancy |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence of the long-run effects of a permanent increase in agricultural productivity on conflict. We construct a newly digitized and geo-referenced dataset of battles in Europe, the Near East and North Africa covering the period between 1400 and 1900 CE. For variation in permanent improvements in agricultural productivity, we exploit the introduction of potatoes from the Americas to the Old World after the Columbian Exchange. We find that the introduction of potatoes permanently reduced conflict for roughly two centuries. The results are driven by a reduction in civil conflicts. |
| Keywords: | conflict; Long-run development; Natural resources |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12457&r=evo |
| By: | Claude-Denys Fluet; Romain Espinosa; Bruno Deffains |
| Abstract: | We conduct an experiment where participants choose between actions that provide private benefits but may also impose losses on strangers. Three legal environments are compared: no law, strict liability for the harm caused to others, and an efficiently designed negligence rule where damages are paid only when the harmful action causes a net social loss. Legal obligations are either perfectly enforced (Severe Law) or only weakly so (Mild Law), i.e., material incentives are then nondeterrent. We investigate how legal obligations and social norms interact. Our results show that liability rules strengthen pro-social behavior and suggest that strict liability has a greater effect than the negligence rule. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral law and economics, liability rules, Social norms, social preferences, legal norms |
| JEL: | C91 K13 D03 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:crrecr:1705&r=evo |
| By: | de Silva, Tiloka; Tenreyro, Silvana |
| Abstract: | Over the past four decades, fertility rates have fallen dramatically in most middle- and low-income countries around the world. To analyze these developments, we study a quantitative model of endogenous human capital and fertility choice, augmented to allow for social norms over the number of children. The model enables us to gauge the role of human capital accumulation on the decline in fertility and to simulate the implementation of population-control policies aimed at affecting social norms and fostering the use of contraceptive technologies. Using data on several socio-economic variables as well as information on funding of population-control policies to parametrize the model, we find that policies aimed at altering family-size norms have provided a significant impulse to accelerate and strengthen the decline in fertility that would have otherwise gradually taken place as economies move to higher levels of human capital. |
| Keywords: | fertility rates; birth rate; convergence; macro-development; Malthusian growth; population. |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86157&r=evo |
| By: | Tim Roughgarden |
| Abstract: | This document collects the lecture notes from my mini-course "Complexity Theory, Game Theory, and Economics," taught at the Bellairs Research Institute of McGill University, Holetown, Barbados, February 19--23, 2017, as the 29th McGill Invitational Workshop on Computational Complexity. The goal of this mini-course is twofold: (i) to explain how complexity theory has helped illuminate several barriers in economics and game theory; and (ii) to illustrate how game-theoretic questions have led to new and interesting complexity theory, including recent several breakthroughs. It consists of two five-lecture sequences: the Solar Lectures, focusing on the communication and computational complexity of computing equilibria; and the Lunar Lectures, focusing on applications of complexity theory in game theory and economics. No background in game theory is assumed. |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1801.00734&r=evo |
| By: | Cinnirella, Francesco; Streb, Jochen |
| Abstract: | We argue that, for a given level of scientific knowledge, tolerance and diversity are conducive to technological creativity and innovation. In particular, we show that variations in innovation within Prussia during the second industrial revolution can be ascribed to differences in religious tolerance that developed in continental Europe from the Peace of Westphalia onwards. By matching a unique historical dataset about religious tolerance in 1,278 Prussian cities with valuable patents for the period 1877-1890, we show that higher levels of religious tolerance are strongly positively associated with innovation during the second industrial revolution. Religious tolerance is measured through population's religious diversity, diversity of churches, and diversity of preachers and religious teachers, respectively. Endogeneity issues are addressed using local variation across cities, within counties. Estimates using preindustrial levels of religious tolerance address issues of reverse causality. As for the channels of transmission, we find significant complementarity between religious tolerance and human capital. Furthermore, we find that cities with higher levels of religious tolerance attracted a larger share of migrants. Finally, higher levels of religious diversity in the population translated into higher levels of religious diversity in the workforce by industrial sector. This result suggests that religious diversity did not generate labor market segmentation by denomination but might have fostered interaction of different denominations. |
| Keywords: | diversity; Innovation; openness; Patenting Activity; Pluralism; Tolerance |
| JEL: | N13 N33 O14 O31 Z12 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12466&r=evo |
| By: | IZQUIERDO S.S. (Universidad de Valladolid); IZQUIERDO L.R. (Universidad de Burgos); LOPEZ-PINTADO Dunia (Université catholique de Louvain, CORE, Belgium) |
| Abstract: | The outbreak of epidemics, the rise of religious radicalization, or the motivational influence of fellow students in classrooms are some of the issues that can be described as diffusion processes in heterogeneous groups. Understanding the role that intera |
| Keywords: | Diffusion, Mixing, Segregation, Homophily, Networks, SIS |
| JEL: | C73 D85 L14 O33 |
| Date: | 2017–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2017027&r=evo |
| By: | Daniel Brent (LSU - Louisiana State University - Louisiana State University [Baton Rouge]); Lata Gangadharan (Department of Economics and Business - Monash University); Anca Mihut (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet [Saint-Étienne] - Université de Lyon - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Marie Villeval (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet [Saint-Étienne] - Université de Lyon - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In the presence of social dilemmas, cooperation is more difficult to achieve when populations are heterogeneous because of conflicting interests within groups. We examine cooperation in the context of a non-linear common pool resource game, in which individuals have unequal extraction capacities and have to decide on their extraction of resources from the common pool. We introduce monetary and nonmonetary policy instruments in this environment. One instrument is based on two variants of a mechanism that taxes extraction and redistributes the tax revenue. The other instrument varies the observability of individual decisions. We find that the two tax and redistribution mechanisms reduce extraction, increase efficiency and decrease inequality within groups. The scarcity pricing mechanism, which is a per-unit tax equal to the marginal extraction externality, is more effective at reducing extraction than an increasing block tax that only taxes units extracted above the social optimum. In contrast, observability impacts only the Baseline condition by encouraging free-riding instead of creating moral pressure to cooperate. |
| Keywords: | Common Pool Resource game, taxation mechanisms, observability, cooperation, heterogeneity, experiment |
| Date: | 2017–10–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01609971&r=evo |
| By: | Schilirò, Daniele |
| Abstract: | The present contribution examines the emergence of expected utility theory by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, the subjective the expected utility theory by Savage, and the problem of choice under risk and uncertainty, focusing in particular on the seminal work “The Utility Analysis of Choices involving Risk" (1948) by Milton Friedman and Leonard Savage to show how the evolution of the theory of choice has determined a separation of economics from psychology. |
| Keywords: | Rational Choice; Risk; Uncertainty; Expected Utility Theory |
| JEL: | C70 D80 D81 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:83366&r=evo |