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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Ron Boschma; Koen Frenken |
| Abstract: | With its focus on innovation, institutions have remain under-theorized in evolutionary economics. This paper aims to contribute to Nelson’s institutional agenda within evolutionary economics in two ways. First, we discuss the core concepts of organizational routines and natural trajectories from an institutional perspective. Second, we pick up on Nelson's co-evolutionary model linking technology, markets and institutions in economic development, and introduce the notion of ‘institutional relatedness’ to understand how institutions both constrain and enable economic development and structural change as well as how institutions channel the direction of institutional change itself. |
| Keywords: | Nelson; evolutionary economics; evolutionary economic geography; institutional relatedness; institutional change; regional diversification |
| JEL: | B15 B52 O18 O33 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2532 |
| By: | Pau Juan-Bartroli; Jos\'e Ignacio Rivero-Wildemauwe |
| Abstract: | Rejections of positive offers in the Ultimatum Game have been attributed to different motivations. We show that a model combining social preferences and moral concerns provides a unifying explanation for these rejections while accounting for additional evidence. Under the preferences considered, a positive degree of spite is a necessary and sufficient condition for rejecting positive offers. This indicates that social preferences, rather than moral concerns, drive rejection behavior. This does not imply that moral concerns do not matter. We show that rejection thresholds increase with individuals' moral concerns, suggesting that morality acts as an amplifier of social preferences. Using data from van Leeuwen and Alger (2024), we estimate individuals' social preferences and moral concerns using a finite mixture approach. Consistent with previous evidence, we identify two types of individuals who reject positive offers in the Ultimatum Game, but that differ in their Dictator Game behavior. |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2510.22086 |
| By: | Caroline Graf (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Social Sciences, Netherlands); Andreas Pondorfer (TU Munich, TUM Campus Straubing for Biotechnology and Sustainablity & TUM School of Management, Germany); Jonathan Schulz (George Mason University, Economics, USA) |
| Abstract: | Gender differences in preferences play a crucial role in shaping economic outcomes. This study examines cross-societal variation in gender differences in honesty, testing whether they reflect innate traits or are shaped by social norms. Using global experimental and survey data, we find that gender differences in honesty emerge primarily in Western societies, where women report stronger honesty norms than men, while such differences are absent in non-Western societies. Additional evidence shows that gender differences in honesty norms are transmitted across generations and narrow as countries become wealthier. These patterns suggest that gender differences in honesty are better explained by socialization rather than innate traits. |
| Keywords: | honesty, gender differences, socialization |
| JEL: | C90 D91 Z10 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aiw:wpaper:45 |
| By: | Clark, Gregory; Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | What happens across generations to random wealth shocks? Do they endure and even magnify, or do they dissipate? By implication, how much of modern wealth is attributable to events before 1900? This paper uses random shocks to family size in England before 1880, that created wealth shocks for the children, to measure the persistence of random wealth shocks. Fertility for married couples in England before 1880 was not controlled but was a biological lottery. And for richer families, family size strongly influenced child wealth. This paper finds that such biology induced wealth shocks had no impact on descendent wealth by three generations later. Since wealth itself persisted strongly across more than five generations this implies that, in the long run, wealth mainly derives from sources other than wealth inheritance itself. The observed link between nineteenth century wealth and modern wealth does not lie in wealth transmission itself. Instead, wealth persisted because of the inheritance within families of behaviours and abilities associated with wealth accumulation and wealth retention. |
| JEL: | D31 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129982 |
| By: | Ruiz-Castillo, Javier |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the contributions of Herman Pontzer and his coauthors to the science of metabolism with applications to (i) the differences between humans and other great apes, (ii) the origins of the genus Homo, and (iii) the subsistence strategies of the hunter-gatherer mode of production. A series of publications from 2012 to 2025 have established three findings that challenge prevailing positions in the literature on biological anthropology. Firstly, some unique human traits have been made possible by a “metabolic revolution”, according to which humans burn more calories per day than other great apes. Secondly, given the lack of correlation between metabolism and physical activity among sedentary and nomadic populations of contemporary Homo sapiens, the origin of this metabolic revolution can be traced back to the first hunter-gatherers of the genus Homo who appeared in Africa around 2.5 million years ago. This is consistent with the nature of the transition from Australopithecus to early Homo. Thirdly, relative to other apes, the subsistence strategies practiced by human hunter-gatherers consist of high-intensity, high-cost extractive activities and expanded daily territorial ranges which, although they lead to no increase in energy efficiency (energy acquired/energy spent), provide more energy per unit of time for both adult subsistence and the provisioning of offspring during an extended development period. |
| Date: | 2025–10–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:48300 |
| By: | Pau Juan-Bartroli; Esteban Mu\~noz-Sobrado |
| Abstract: | The sustainability of cooperation is crucial for understanding the progress of societies. We study a repeated game in which individuals decide the share of their income to transfer to other group members. A central feature of our model is that individuals may, with some probability, switch incomes across periods, our measure of income mobility, while the overall income distribution remains constant over time. We analyze how income mobility and income inequality affect the sustainability of contribution norms, informal agreements about how much each member should transfer to the group. We find that greater income mobility facilitates cooperation. In contrast, the effect of inequality is ambiguous and depends on the progressivity of the contribution norm and the degree of mobility. We apply our framework to an optimal taxation problem to examine the interaction between public and private redistribution. |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2510.26503 |
| By: | Hideo Konishi (Boston College); Michel Le Breton (Toulouse School of Economics); Shlomo Weber (Southern Methodist University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we define additive dyadic social interactions games (ADG), in which each player cares not only about the selected action, but also about interactions with other players, especially those who choose the same action. This class of games includes alliance formation games, network games, and dis- crete choice problems with network externalities. While it is known that games in the ADG class admit a pure strategy Nash equilibrium that is a maximizer of the game's potential, the potential approach does not always apply if all coalitional deviations are allowed. We then introduce a novel notion of a strong landscape equilibrium, which relies on a limited scope of coalitional deviations. We show the existence of a strong landscape equilibrium for a class of basic additive dyadic social interactions games (BADG), even though a strong Nash equilibrium may fail to exist. Somewhat surprisingly, a potential-maximizing strong landscape equilibrium is not always a strong Nash equilibrium even if the set of the latter is nonempty. We also provide applications and extensions of our results. |
| Keywords: | social interactions games, coalition, landscape equilibrium |
| Date: | 2025–10–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:bocoec:1098 |
| By: | Xue, Melanie |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a structured approach for using genealogical records from FamilySearch to study Chinese historical demography. As a proof of concept, we focus on over 190, 000 digitized records from a single surname, drawn from many provinces and spanning multiple centuries. These lineage-based microdata include individual-level birth, death, and kinship information, which we clean, validate, and geocode using consistent rules and standardized place names. We begin by documenting descriptive patterns in population growth, sex ratios, and migration. Migration was overwhelmingly local, with longdistance moves rare and concentrated in a small number of lineages. Outmigration rose to a high point between 1750 and 1850 and then declined in later cohorts and generations. We then use the genealogical data to test specific hypotheses. Male-biased sex ratios—likely influenced by female infanticide—are strongly associated with higher rates of male childlessness. Migration rates fall sharply with patrilineal generational depth, offering micro-level evidence that clans became more sedentary over time. Together, these findings show how genealogical records can be used to reconstruct long-run demographic patterns and to assess social processes such as kinship, mobility, and reproductive exclusion. The approach is replicable and extensible to other surnames and regions as data coverage improves. |
| Keywords: | crowd-surfed genealogies; historical demography; China |
| JEL: | J11 J13 N10 N35 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129939 |
| By: | Snower, Dennis J. (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Whereas labor markets are traditionally viewed as machine-like environments – where agents, coordinated by price signals, solve constrained optimization problems or adhere to established heuristics – this paper views labor markets as human ecosystems, containing living things, namely, the human beings who participate in these markets. Living things adapt to their environment and evolve across their domains of life. Consequently, activities in labor markets cannot be understood independently of their social and political foundations. Labor markets are embedded in social, economic, political and environmental systems, and their adaptiveness to their social and natural environments. In this context, the insider-outsider theory may be generalized by reconceptualizing insiders and outsiders in terms of their relative adaptive advantages and the structural barriers to adaptation. The functions and misfunctions of adaptively embedded labor markets can be specified in terms of the adaptiveness as systems or the adaptiveness of the components of these systems. The ecosystemic approach also involves a reconceptualization of agents operating in labor markets, implying a new theories of the firm and workers. |
| Keywords: | evolution, embedded labor markets, insider-outsider theory, theory of the firm |
| JEL: | J0 J2 J6 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18202 |
| By: | Prati, Alberto; Saucet, Charlotte |
| Abstract: | In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in motivated memory as a psychological determinant of economic outcomes. According to motivated memory, people tend to better recall pleasant information because it serves their psychological needs. Another phenomenon, however, predicts the same pattern: According to mood congruence, pleasant information is easier to recall for individuals in nonnegative mood, regardless of any psychological needs. Since most people tend to have some need for self-esteem and to experience more positive than negative feelings during the day, the two phenomena predict similar outcomes in most ordinary situations, but not all. To test the predictive power of these two phenomena, we collect data from a laboratory experiment and from a nationally representative survey. We study how individuals in a temporarily induced negative mood (via a video clip) or those who report a low baseline mood (relative to the population) recall negative feedback. Our results meet the predictions of motivated memory: Individuals better recall positive than negative feedback, even when they are in negative mood. Motivated memory is not just a matter of mood. |
| Keywords: | experiment; feedback; mood congruence; motivated beliefs; motivated memory; selective recall |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2025–10–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129991 |
| By: | Francesco Agostinelli; Zach Weingarten |
| Abstract: | The longstanding debate over whether human capabilities and skills are shaped more by “nature” or “nurture” has been revitalized by recent advances in genetics, particularly in the use of polygenic scores (PGSs) to proxy for genetic endowments. Yet, we argue that PGSs embed not only direct genetic effects but also indirect environmental influences, raising questions about their validity for causal analysis. We show that these conflated measures can mislead studies of gene–environment interactions, especially when parental behavior responds to children’s genetic risk. To address this issue, we construct a new latent measure of genetic risk that integrates individual genotypes with diagnostic symptoms, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health linked to restricted individual SNP-level genotypes from dbGaP. Exploiting multiple sources of variation—including the Mendelian within-family genetic randomization among siblings—we find consistent evidence that parents compensate by investing more in children with higher genetic risk for ADHD. Strikingly, these compensatory responses disappear when genetic risk is proxied by the conventional ADHD PGS, which also yields weaker—and in some cases reversed—predictions for long-run outcomes. Finally, we embed our latent measure of genetic endowments into a standard dynamic structural model of child development. The model shows that both parental investments and latent genetic risk jointly shape children’s cognitive and mental health development, underscoring the importance of modeling the dynamic interplay between genes and environments in the formation of human capital. |
| JEL: | D10 H0 I1 I2 I20 J01 J1 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34427 |
| By: | John Komlos |
| Abstract: | The U.S. healthcare and food-provisioning systems have failed to create an environment in which the human biological organism can flourish. Consequently, key health outcomes, most notably life expectancy, have consistently lagged those of other high-income populations since the Reagan era, coinciding with the adoption of economic policies that increased inequality and precarity across the population. We estimate the trends in physical stature, another omnibus indicator of a population’s biological well-being that reflects not only nutritional intake, inequality, and stress experienced by the population, but also the overall health environment—using a sample of 44, 322 adults from the NHANES surveys, stratified by gender and three ethnic groups. We find that the height of Americans began to decline among those born around or before the early 1980s in parallel with the diminution in the rate of increase of life expectancy. The decline in adult height ranged from 0·68 ± 0.36 cm among white women to 1·97 ± 0.50 cm among Hispanic men and is statistically significant across all six demographic groups considered. This decline in heights serves as corroborating evidence that the U.S.’s laissez-faire approach to healthcare and food provisioning delivers suboptimal population health outcomes. Public health priorities urgently need to be refocused. |
| Keywords: | healthcare, survey data, life expectancy |
| JEL: | I14 I18 N32 D31 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12207 |