nep-evo New Economics Papers
on Evolutionary Economics
Issue of 2020‒02‒24
five papers chosen by
Matthew Baker
City University of New York

  1. Culture cumulative, apprentissage social et réseaux sociaux By Claude Meidinger
  2. From particles to firms: a kinetic model of climbing up evolutionary landscapes By Nicola Bellomo; Giovanni Dosi; Damian A. Knopoff; Maria Enrica Virgillito
  3. Endogenous Game Theoretic Deontology By Shyam Gouri Suresh; Paul Studtmann
  4. Classical Unified Growth Theory By Lueger, Tim
  5. Bounded Rationality and Limited Datasets By Geoffroy de Clippel; Kareen Rozen

  1. By: Claude Meidinger (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: Discussions about the existence of a culture in non-human species is often concerned by the question whether these species could possess a cognitive complexity sufficient to allow them to imitate others. According to many authors, to imitate is a cognitively sohisticated process that depends on a functionally abstract representation of a problem and its solution, something that non human species do not seem to possess. However, the fast evolution of cognitive performances and of complex inventions in human beings could not be explained only by the improvement of the rate of innovation in individual learning and (or) the improvement of the process of imitation. Such a cumulative evolution depends also on a wider social organization characterized by an increase in the size of the social networks. The simulations displayed here show how such an increase, jointly considered with the diversity of learning processes, allow to better understand the major transitions noted in the cultural evolution of primates and human beings.
    Abstract: Les discussions concernant l'existence d'une culture chez les espèces non humaines ont eu tendance à se focaliser sur la question de savoir si, en dehors de l'espèce humaine, les espèces animales disposent d'une complexité cognitive suffisante pour imiter autrui. Imiter, chez beaucoup d'auteurs, est réservé à un processus cognitivement sophistiqué, dépendant d'une représentation fonctionnelle abstraite d'un problème et de sa solution, ce dont les espèces animales non humaines ne semblent pas disposer. Cependant, l'évolution rapide de performances cognitives et d'inventions complexes chez les êtres humains caractérisant une évolution culturelle cumulative ne saurait s'expliquer uniquement par une amélioration du taux d'innovation de l'apprentissage individual et (ou) de l'efficacité d'un processus d'imitation. Une telle évolution cumulative dépend également d'une organisation sociale plus étendue au sein de groupes d'individus se traduisant par une augmentation de la taille des réseaux sociaux. Les simulations présentées ici illustrent en quoi la prise en compte de la taille des réseaux sociaux jointe à celle de la diversité des modes d'apprentissage permettent de mieux comprendre les transitions majeures susceptibles de s'être produites lors de l'évolution culturelle des primates et des humains.
    Keywords: learning processes,cumulative cultural evolution,social networks,simulations,processus d'apprentissage,évolution culturelle cumulative,réseaux sociaux
    Date: 2018–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01896572&r=all
  2. By: Nicola Bellomo; Giovanni Dosi; Damian A. Knopoff; Maria Enrica Virgillito
    Abstract: This paper represents the first attempt to bridge the evolutionary theory in economics and the theory of active particles in mathematics. It seeks to present a kinetic model for an evolutionary formalization of socio-economic systems. The derived new mathematical formulation intends to formalize the processes of learning and selection as the two fundamental drivers of evolutionary systems [7]. To coherentl y represent the aforementioned properties, the kinetic theory of active particles [1] is here further developed, including the complex interaction of two hierarchical functional subsystems. Modeling and simulations enlighten the predictive ability of the approach. Finally, we outline the potential avenues for future research.
    Keywords: Evolutionary dynamics; idiosyncratic learning; market selection; active particles; kinetic theory.
    Date: 2020–02–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2020/04&r=all
  3. By: Shyam Gouri Suresh; Paul Studtmann
    Abstract: We examine current approaches to modeling deontology with game theory in the context of whether the agents in those approaches are autonomous. An autonomous agent’s actions must result from her reason, not from contingent causal factors such as genetic similarity, the influence of culture, or outside causal forces. The second component of autonomy is that an autonomous agent must allow her counterparty to be autonomous as well. We propose an approach to modeling deontological reasoning where agents are autonomous in terms of both components.
    Keywords: Kantian Morality, Game Theory, Deontology
    JEL: D91 D63 A12 C79
    Date: 2019–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dav:wpaper:19-03&r=all
  4. By: Lueger, Tim
    Abstract: Throughout the history of economic thought, there have been numerous attempts to model an early era of "Malthusian" economic stagnation as well as the transition to an era of economic development in one coherent framework, or, in other words, a unified growth theory. In recent years, unified growth models have attracted a large readership among economists, challenging the conventional exogenous neoclassical growth theory. However, in most of these models, an important effect suggested by Malthus has been frequently omitted. By including what he had called "the great preventive check" in the conventional Malthusian trap model, which is based on the principle of population, the principle of diminishing returns and the principle of labor division, the transition can be modeled in a very simple dynamic macroeconomic framework. The correspondingly advanced theory suggests that increasing life expectancy tends to create a demographic structure that is much less prone to overpopulation. This new interpretation of the classical growth model is suggested to be capable of integrating the mechanisms of economic stagnation and economic development. Although the "vaguer intuitions" of the classical economists provided deeper and more profound insights than those of most modern unified growth theorists, the verbal form of their arguments has at the same time tended to be more favorable to misinterpretations. It is the intention of this work to identify these misinterpretations and to restore the main ideas of classical economics by building a basic classical unified growth model.
    Date: 2019–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dar:wpaper:118523&r=all
  5. By: Geoffroy de Clippel; Kareen Rozen
    Abstract: Bounded rationality theories are typically characterized over exhaustive data sets. We develop a methodology to understand the empirical content of such theories with limited data, adapting the classic, revealed-preference approach to new forms of revealed information. We apply our approach to an array of theories, illustrating its versatility. We identify theories and datasets testable in the same elegant way as Rationality, and theories and datasets where testing is more challenging. We show that previous attempts to test consistency of limited data with bounded rationality theories are subject to a conceptual pitfall that can yield false positives and empty out-of-sample predictions.
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2020-08&r=all

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