|
on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Guillaume Cheikbossian (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - FRE2010 - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier - UM - Université de Montpellier - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) |
| Abstract: | We provide an evolutionary explanation for the well-established evidence of the existence of in-group favoritism in intergroup conflict. Using a model of group contest, we show that the larger the number of groups competing against one another or the larger the degree of complementarity between individual efforts, the more likely group members are altruistic towards their teammates under preference evolution. |
| Keywords: | Indirect evolutionary approach,Evolutionary stability,Groups,Altruism,Conflicts |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02291876&r=all |
| By: | Gehrig, Stefan; Mesoudi, Alex (University of Exeter); Lamba, Shakti |
| Abstract: | Microfinance is an economic development intervention that involves credit provision to low-income entrepreneurs. Lenders typically require joint liability, where borrowers share the responsibility of repaying a group loan. We argue that this lending practice is subject to the same fundamental cooperation problem faced by other organisms in nature, and consequently evolutionary theories of cooperation from the biological sciences can provide new insights into loan repayment behaviour. This could both inform the design of microfinance institutions, and offer a real-world test case for evolutionary theories of cooperation. We first formulate evolutionary hypotheses on group loan repayment based on assortment mechanisms like kin selection, reciprocity or partner choice. We then test them by reviewing 40 studies on micro-borrowers’ loan repayment from 31 countries. We find more supportive than contrary evidence for the hypotheses, but results are generally mixed, generating avenues for future research within this framework. Finally, we present an evolutionary game-theoretic model of group lending as a threshold public goods game which further explains some empirical findings and generates new predictions on repayment rates. Our work shows how understanding the evolution of cooperation can guide economic development interventions and, more generally, offer ultimate explanatory theories for phenomena studied by social scientists. |
| Date: | 2019–10–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:tmpqj&r=all |
| By: | Krapp, Mario (University of Cambridge); Beyer, Robert; Edmundson, Stephen L.; Valdes, Paul J; Manica, Andrea (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | A detailed and accurate reconstruction of past climate is essential in understanding the drivers that have shaped species, including our own, and their habitats. However, spatially-detailed climate reconstructions that continuously cover the Quaternary do not yet exist, mainly because no paleoclimate model can reconstruct regional-scale dynamics over geological time scales. Here we develop a new approach, the Global Climate Model Emulator (GCMET), which reconstructs the climate of the last 800 thousand years with unprecedented spatial detail. GCMET captures the temporal dynamics of glacial-interglacial climates as an Earth System Model of Intermediate Complexity would whilst resolving the local dynamics with the accuracy of a Global Climate Model. It provides a new, unique resource to explore the climate of the Quaternary, which we use to investigate the long-term stability of major habitat types. We identify a number of stable pockets of habitat that have remained unchanged over the last 800 thousand years, acting as potential long-term evolutionary refugia. Thus, the highly detailed, comprehensive overview of climatic changes through time delivered by GCMET provides the needed resolution to quantify the role of long term habitat fragmentation in an ecological and anthropological context. |
| Date: | 2019–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:eartha:d5hfx&r=all |
| By: | Daniel Serra (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - FRE2010 - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier - UM - Université de Montpellier - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) |
| Abstract: | The paper is an overview of the main significant advances in the knowledge of brain functioning by modern neuroscience that have contributed to the emergence of neuroeconomics and its rise over the past two decades. These advances are grouped over three non-independent topics referred to as the "emo-rational" brain, "social" brain, and "computational" brain. For each topic, it emphasizes findings considered as critical to the birth and development of neuroeconomics while highlighting some of prominent questions about which knowledge should be improved by future research. In parallel, it shows that the boundaries between neuroeconomics and several recent subfields of cognitive neuroscience, such as affective, social, and more generally, decision neuroscience, are rather porous. It suggests that a greater autonomy of neuroeconomics should perhaps come from the development of studies about more economic policy-oriented concerns. In order to make the paper accessible to a large audience the various neuroscientific notions used are defined and briefly explained. In the same way, for economists not specialized in experimental and behavioral economics, the definition of the main economic models referred to in the text is recalled. |
| Keywords: | neuroeconomics,neuroscience,behavioral economics,experimental economics |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02160907&r=all |