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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Dominique Desbois (UMR PSAE - Paris-Saclay Applied Economics - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Daniel Kahneman, a researcher in cognitive psychology and professor at Princeton University, has highlighted cognitive biases in human behaviour, in particular aversion to the risk of loss, renewing our understanding of the psychological foundations of economics. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral Economics, Cogintive Psychology, United=States, Israel |
| Date: | 2024–06–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04620674 |
| By: | Matthew J. Baker; Joyce P. Jacobsen |
| Abstract: | We discuss the interrelationship between the treatment of the elderly, the nature of production, and the transmission of culture. Respect for the elderly is endogenous. Parents cultivate an interest in consuming culture in their children; when they are older, children compensate their elders proportional to the degree to which their interests were previously cultivated. We show that this model is functionally equivalent to one in which cultural goods are transferred across generations. We focus on the relative well-being of the elderly and use the model to explain patterns in their relative well-being across societies. An important theme is that the cultivation of culture and norms for the respect and support of the elderly bear a nonlinear relationship with many economic variables, such as capital and or land intensity in production. We also discuss the interaction of property rights with production, assets such as productive resources, and relative treatment of the elderly. Insecurity of some types of property rights, such as rights over output, may benefit the elderly, while secure rights over productive resources may also benefit the elderly. We discuss how the elderly could be affected by demographic, technological and policy changes in both developing and developed economies. |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2407.09638 |
| By: | Luo , Wei (Jinan University); Huang, Wei (Peking University); Park, Albert (Asian Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | We study the influence of social norms in determining the impact of early life exposure to the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–1961 on gender inequality. We model how social norms interact with adverse shocks to affect male and female survival chances and influence subsequent human capital investments. We test these predictions empirically by using the Fifth National Population Census of the People’s Republic of China in 2000 that has information on birthplace and estimate a difference-in-differences model that combines cohort and regional variation in exposure to the famine with regional variation in the culture of son preference. We find that son preference buffers the negative impact of intrauterine famine shocks on cohort male-to-female sex ratios and reduces famine’s impact on gender inequality in health and education. |
| Keywords: | famine; son preference; sex ratios; human capital investment |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–08–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:0738 |
| By: | Bain, Paul G.; Bongiorno, Renata |
| Abstract: | Despite widespread claims by economists that humans have unlimited economic wants, evidence for this psychological claim is sparse. Here we focus on a common interpretation of unlimited wants as insatiable – unfulfilled wants persist even at higher incomes because new wants always emerge to replace satisfied wants. We analyzed a representative 16-year multi-wave US dataset (N=11865) previously used to show that economic wants are insatiable based on highly selective subsets of these data. Using the full dataset shows that having insatiable wants is far from universal – about a third reported no unfulfilled economic wants, and on average people with higher incomes had fewer wants. Additional analyses showed that many people did not aspire to wealth in their conception of “the good life”, and the extent of unfulfilled wants varied over time. This assumption about universal human nature is not supported, calling into question the theories and policies it informs. |
| Keywords: | unlimited wants, insatiability |
| JEL: | A10 A12 A13 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esrepo:301038 |