nep-evo New Economics Papers
on Evolutionary Economics
Issue of 2021‒11‒01
six papers chosen by
Matthew Baker
City University of New York

  1. Schoolchildren cooperate more successfully with non-kin than with siblings By Gladys Barragan; Maxime Cauchoix; Anne Regnier; Marie Bourjade; Astrid Hopfensitz; Alexis Chaine
  2. Reciprocity or community: Different cultural pathways to cooperation and welfare By Anna Gunnthorsdottir; Palmar Thorsteinsson
  3. Preferences and Covid-19 Vaccination Intentions By Serge Blondel; François Langot; Judith Mueller; Jonathan Sicsic
  4. A critical note on the scientific conception of economics: claiming for a methodological pluralism By Rouven Reinke
  5. AgriLOVE: agriculture, land-use and technical change in an evolutionary, agent-based model. By Jonathan Taglialatela; Andrea Mina
  6. China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: Further Concerns about the Historical GDP Estimates for China By Peter M. Solar

  1. By: Gladys Barragan (SETE - Station d'écologie théorique et expérimentale - UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - OMP - Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées - Météo France - CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Maxime Cauchoix (SETE - Station d'écologie théorique et expérimentale - UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - OMP - Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées - Météo France - CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Anne Regnier (SETE - Station d'écologie théorique et expérimentale - UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - OMP - Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées - Météo France - CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Marie Bourjade (CLLE - Cognition, Langues, Langage, Ergonomie - EPHE - École pratique des hautes études - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Astrid Hopfensitz (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Alexis Chaine (SETE - Station d'écologie théorique et expérimentale - UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - OMP - Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées - Météo France - CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: Cooperation plays a key role in the development of advanced societies and can be stabilized through shared genes (kinship) or reciprocation. In humans, cooperation among kin occurs more readily than cooperation among non-kin. In many organisms, cooperation can shift with age (e.g. helpers at the nest); however, little is known about developmental shifts between kin and non-kin cooperation in humans. Using a cooperative game, we show that 3- to 10-year-old French schoolchildren cooperated less successfully with siblings than with non-kin children, whether or not non-kin partners were friends. Furthermore, children with larger social networks cooperated better and the perception of friendship among non-friends improved after cooperating. These results contrast with the well-established preference for kin cooperation among adults and indicate that non-kin cooperation in humans might serve to forge and extend non-kin social relationships during middle childhood and create opportunities for future collaboration beyond kin. Our results suggest that the current view of cooperation in humans may only apply to adults and that future studies should focus on how and why cooperation with different classes of partners might change during development in humans across cultures as well as other long-lived organisms.
    Keywords: Kinship,Human evolution,Evolution of cooperation,Kin selection,Child development
    Date: 2021–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03167067&r=
  2. By: Anna Gunnthorsdottir; Palmar Thorsteinsson
    Abstract: In a laboratory experiment we compare voluntary cooperation in Iceland and the US. We furthermore compare the associated thought processes across cultures. The two countries have similar economic performance, but survey measures show that they differ culturally. Our hypotheses are based on two such measures, The Inglehart cultural world map and the Knack and Keefers scale of civic attitudes toward large-scale societal functioning. We prime the participants with different social foci, emphasizing in one a narrow grouping and in the other a larger social unit. In each country we implement this using two different feedback treatments. Under group feedback, participants only know the contributions by the four members of their directly cooperating group. Under session feedback they are informed of the contributions within their group as well as by everyone else in the session. Under group feedback, cooperation levels do not differ between the two cultures. However, under session feedback cooperation levels increase in Iceland and decline in the US. Even when contribution levels are the same members of the two cultures differ in their motives to cooperate: Icelanders tend to cooperate unconditionally and US subjects conditionally. Our findings indicate that different cultures can achieve similar economic and societal performance through different cultural norms and suggest that cooperation should be encouraged through culturally tailored suasion tactics. We also find that some decision factors such as Inequity Aversion do not differ across the two countries, which raises the question whether they are human universals.
    Date: 2021–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2110.12085&r=
  3. By: Serge Blondel (GRANEM - Groupe de Recherche Angevin en Economie et Management - UA - Université d'Angers - AGROCAMPUS OUEST - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - Institut National de l'Horticulture et du Paysage, LIRAES - EA 4470 - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Recherche Appliquée en Economie de la Santé - UP - Université de Paris); François Langot (GAINS - Groupe d'Analyse des Itinéraires et des Niveaux Salariaux - UM - Le Mans Université, IUF - Institut Universitaire de France - M.E.N.E.S.R. - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche, PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres, IZA - Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit - Institute of Labor Economics); Judith Mueller (EHESP - École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique [EHESP], Institut Pasteur [Paris]); Jonathan Sicsic (LIRAES - EA 4470 - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Recherche Appliquée en Economie de la Santé - UP - Université de Paris)
    Abstract: This paper shows that prospect theory, extended to account for differences across individuals in their patience and their valuation of the vaccination as a common good can explain why more than 40% of the population has intent to reject the Covid-19 vaccination, as well as the differences in vaccination intentions across population subgroups. Indeed, prospect theory by over-weighting the side effect explains the reject of vaccination. This can be partially compensated by a high patience and/or a large valuation of the collective immunity. The calibrated version of our model, based on an original survey carried out on a representative sample of the adult population living in France allowing us to identify curvatures of their value function, their discount rates and their willingness to cooperate, can predict the evolution of the vaccination intentions between November 2020 an March 2021. We also show that the international differences in the vaccination intentions are closely related to the valuation of the vaccination as a common good.
    Keywords: behavioral economics,Covid-19,prospect theory,vaccination choice
    Date: 2021–10–16
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03381425&r=
  4. By: Rouven Reinke (University of Hamburg)
    Abstract: Opponents of mainstream economics have not yet called attention to the lack of in-depth examination of the general scientific conception of modern economics. However, economic science cannot consistently fulfil the epistemological and ontological requirements of the scientific standards underlying this conception. What can be scientifically recognized as true cannot be answered, neither through the actual ontological structure of the object of observation nor through a methodological demarcation. These limitations necessarily lead to the claim for both a pragmatic and a radical methodological pluralism.
    Keywords: pluralism,scientific conception,mainstream economics,methodology
    Date: 2021–11–20
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03374887&r=
  5. By: Jonathan Taglialatela; Andrea Mina
    Abstract: The paper focuses on the capital structure of firms in their early years of operation. Through the lens of Pecking Order Theory, we study how the pursuit of innovation influences the reliance of firms on different types of internal and external finance. Panel analyses of data on 7,394 German start-ups show that innovation activities are relevant predictors of the start-ups' revealed preferences for finance, and that the nature of these effects on the type and order of financing sources depends on the degree of information asymmetries specific to research and development activities, human capital endowments, and the market introduction of new products and processes.
    Keywords: Innovation; information asymmetries; start-up; pecking order; entrepreneurial finance.
    Date: 2021–10–23
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2021/36&r=
  6. By: Peter M. Solar (CEREC, Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles and Faculty of History, University of Oxford)
    Abstract: Broadberry, Guan and Li (2018) made estimates for China’s GDP per capita from 980 to 1840 in order to date the onset of the Great Divergence between China and western European economies. In response to Solar’s (2021) criticisms, they (2021) made some revisions to the estimates but largely dismissed most of Solar’s concerns, particularly those about their series for China’s population and its implications for dating the Great Divergence. This working paper assesses their revisions, reaffirms concerns about the level of their 1840 benchmark, and points out the weaknesses of the population figures in greater detail. The dating of the Great Divergence turns out to depend on the population series used and on the interpretation of what was happening to incomes in China during the mid-seventeenth century. This paper recommends considerable skepticism about Broadberry, Guan and Li’s estimates.
    Keywords: China, Great Divergence, historical national accounts, population
    JEL: E1 N15 O47 O53
    Date: 2021–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0217&r=

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