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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Emilio Depetris-Chauvin (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile); Ömer Özak (Southern Methodist University) |
| Abstract: | This research explores the historical roots of the division of labor in pre-modern societies. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that intra-ethnic diversity had a positive effect on the division of labor across ethnicities in the pre-modern era. Exploiting a variety of identification strategies and a novel ethnic level dataset combining geocoded ethnographic, linguistic and genetic data, it establishes that higher levels of intra-ethnic diversity were conducive to economic specialization in the pre-modern era. The findings are robust to a host of geographical, institutional, cultural and historical confounders, and suggest that variation in intra-ethnic diversity is the main predictor of the division of labor in pre-modern times. |
| Keywords: | Economic Comparative Development, Division of Labor, Economic Specialization, Intra-Ethnic Diversity, Cultural Diversity, Population Diversity, Genetic Diversity, Linguistic Diversity, Serial Founder Effect |
| JEL: | D74 F10 F14 J24 N10 O10 O11 O12 O40 O43 O44 Z10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smu:ecowpa:1803&r=evo |
| By: | Alger, Ingela; Lehmann, Laurent; Weibull, Jörgen W. |
| Abstract: | Humans have evolved in populations structured in groups that extended beyond the nuclear family. Individuals interacted with each other within these groups and there was limited migration and sometimes conáicts between these groups. Suppose that during this evolution, individuals transmitted their behaviors or preferences to their (genetic or cultural) o§spring, and that material outcomes resulting from the interaction determined which parents were more successful than others in producing (genetic or cultural) o§spring. Should one then expect pure material self-interest to prevail? Some degree of altruism, spite, inequity aversion or morality? By building on established models in population biology we analyze the role that di§erent aspects of population structureó such as group size, migration rates, probability of group conáicts, cultural loyalty towards parentsó play in shaping behaviors and preferences which, once established, cannot be displaced by any other preference. In particular, we establish that uninvadable preferences under limited migration between groups will consist of a materially self-interested, a moral, and an other-regarding component, and we show how the strength of each component depends on population structure. |
| Keywords: | Strategic interactions; Preference evolution; Evolution by natural selection; Cultural transmission; Pro-sociality; Altruism; Morality; Spite |
| JEL: | A12 A13 B52 C73 D01 D63 D64 D91 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:32436&r=evo |
| By: | Rohan Dutta; David K Levine; Salvatore Modica |
| Date: | 2018–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levarc:786969000000001449&r=evo |
| By: | Bernergård, Axel (Department of Economics, Södertörn University); Mohlin, Erik (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides sufficient conditions under which convex monotonic evolutionary dynamics (a class of imitative dynamics that includes the replicator dynamic) select against strategies that do not survive iterated elimination of weakly dominated strategies. We apply these conditions to Bertrand duopolies, first-price auctions, finitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemmas, and the p-Beauty Contests. Our conditions also imply evolutionary selection against all iteratively strictly dominated strategies. |
| Keywords: | Iterated elimination of weakly dominated strategies; Iterated admissibility; Payoff monotonicity; Convex monotonicity; Evolutionary dynamics; Replicator dynamic |
| JEL: | C72 C73 |
| Date: | 2017–12–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2017_018&r=evo |
| By: | Jawwad Noor (Department of Economics, Boston University); Norio Takeoka (norio.takeoka@r.hit-u.ac.jp) |
| Abstract: | Time preference is modelled as a current self that overcomes selfishness by incurring a cognitive cost of empathizing with her future selves. Such a model unifies disparate well-known experimental findings. Behavioral foundations are provided by exploiting the idea that higher stakes provide an incentive for the exertion of higher effort, so that changes in the agent's impatience with respect to the scale of outcomes pin down the underlying process. The behavioral content of limited cognitive resources is shown to lie in violations of Separability. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bos:wpaper:wp2018-008&r=evo |