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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Fergusson, Leopoldo; Guerra, José-Alberto; Robinson, James A. |
| Abstract: | Since formal rules can only partially reduce opportunistic behavior, third-party sanctioning to promote fairness is critical to achieving desirable social outcomes. Social norms may underpin such behavior, but they can also undermine it. We study one such norm —the “don’t be a toad†norm, as it is referred to in Colombia— that tells people to mind their own business and not snitch on others. In a set of fairness games where a third party can punish unfair behavior, but players can invoke the “don’t be a toad†norm, we find that the mere possibility of invoking this norm completely reverses the benefits of third-party sanctioning to achieve fair social outcomes. We establish this is an anti-social norm in a well-defined sense: most players consider it inappropriate, yet they expect the majority will invoke it. To understand this phenomenon we develop an evolutionary model of endogenous social norm transmission and demonstrate that a payoff advantage from adherence to the norm in social dilemmas, combined with sufficient heterogeneity in the disutility of those who view the norm as inappropriate, can generate the apparent paradox of an anti-social norm in the steady-state equilibrium. We provide further evidence that historical exposure to political violence, which increased the ostracization of snitches, raised sensitivity to this norm. |
| Keywords: | Social norms; Fairness; long-run effects of conflict; Laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D30 D91 D74 N46 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19519 |
| By: | Karalis-Isaac, Alex; Miller, Marcus |
| Abstract: | Samuel Huntington viewed world history as the clash of civilizations - of cultures differing in several dimensions, including religion. In contrast, Gerard Roland has proposed a one-dimensional approach, where the critical distinction between countries is whether they have the statist economy of a collective society; or the market-oriented system of an individualistic society. It is claimed, moreover, that current societies reflect the type of their respective ‘founding civilizations’; and empirical evidence - based on historical data he has assembled – is offered in support of both claims. Adam Smith saw a role for ‘moral sentiments’ in human behaviour, however; and anthropologists have emphasized the role of religion in promoting cooperation and contributing to the growth of civilisations. Could taking this into account enhance Roland’s objectives of distinguishing between cultures and of tracking the effect of the past on present civilisations? We show that the ‘principal components’ extracted from Roland’s institutional data of founding civilisations help identify the historical conditions for the emergence of the key religious blocs of the modern world – offering, we suggest, a social/moral complement to the account of temporal authority that he has developed. |
| Keywords: | Individualism; Collectivism; Religion |
| JEL: | N00 P00 P50 Z1 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19509 |
| By: | Lidström, Erik |
| Abstract: | In a new paper, academic Dr Erik Lidström argues that there is a fundamental mismatch between the world our brains evolved in to, and the society we operate in today. Human beings evolved over roughly two million years to live in small hunter-gatherer tribes of around 500 people. In that world, instincts around face-to-face exchange, equal sharing of collectively hunted resources, and wariness of outsiders were rational and adaptive. The extended order of modern capitalism - anonymous, spontaneous, governed by price signals involving millions of strangers - is, in evolutionary terms, a very recent and alien environment. No one has had time to adapt to it. Drawing on Hayek's concept of the "extended order", Lidström argues that large societies self-organise through voluntary exchange, property rights and contract - without anyone designing the outcome. Hunter-gatherer psychology struggles to process this: our minds handle direct, face-to-face interactions well, but not the second and third-order effects of interventions in complex, interconnected systems. Price controls, from Diocletian's in 301 AD to modern rent regulations, illustrate the pattern: each is an instinctively appealing direct intervention that produces the opposite of its intended effect. Government expenditure in major industrialised economies rose from around 10.7% of GDP in 1870 to 45.6% by 1996 - a trajectory the paper connects to the repeated human impulse to "do something", where each intervention tends to generate new problems requiring further intervention in turn. The paper concludes that allowing economies to flourish requires accepting what will always feel counterintuitive: that prosperity emerges from the self-organisation of markets, not from conscious direction. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ieadps:342487 |
| By: | Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A. |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new framework for studying the interplay between culture and institutions. We interpret culture as a repertoire, consisting of (cultural) attributes and allowing rich cultural responses to political changes. Combinations of attributes produce cultural configurations, which provide social meaning, coordination and political justification. Our framework has several distinctive features. First, it proposes a “systems approach" to culture: the meaning and function of attributes are determined within the whole configuration and political equilibrium. Second, it emphasizes discontinuous or “saltational" changes in culture – rather than gradual, evolutionary changes – as attributes are reconnected and acquire new meanings in response to evolving circumstances and as outcomes in ongoing "cultural struggles". Third, our framework puts the spotlight on how fluidly different cultures can respond to conditions, depending on the nature of their attributes and constraints on their connections. Finally, it enriches the study of the co-determination of political, institutional and cultural outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Attributes; Culture; Discontinuity; Fluidity; Institutions |
| JEL: | P16 P50 O10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19518 |
| By: | Animesh Ray |
| Abstract: | Economic stability and progress in modern technological societies depend on vigorous and independent public funding of science and engineering research. When peer review or funding decisions are perceived as politically directed, scientists, funding agencies, and the public react in coupled and conflicting ways. We an evolutionary game-theoretic model to analyze how perceived political interference in science funding affects the interrelated behaviors of scientists, funding agencies, and the public. The model simulates scientists choosing to refuse peer reviews and retaliate, agencies responding by adopting AI-assisted review and altering reviewer pay, and the public accepting or rejecting these AI systems. Through numerical simulations, five principal findings are identified: (1) Operational capacity and institutional legitimacy are governed by separate conditions and can fail independently. (2) Legitimacy of the process is bistable, meaning final states are determined by the public's acceptance of AI. (3) Since the career cost for researchers refusing to review is generally low, resistance/retaliation cascades can readily ignite, leading identical institutions to entirely opposite fates. (4) Increasing reviewer pay only stabilizes participation within a strict budget-solvency frontier, and emergency pay can paradoxically erode the legitimacy it aims to protect. (5) Finally, finite-population simulations reveal that baseline scenarios partition into either legitimacy recovery without capacity or joint failure, confirming that the fundamental separation of capacity and legitimacy outcomes is a dominant structural feature driven primarily by initial scientific resistance and politicization levels. This theoretical work quantifies issues for future work in science policy. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.26091 |