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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | J. Henrich; R. Boyd |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a simple mathematical model that shows how economic inequality between social groups can arise and be maintained even when the only adaptive learning processes driving cultural evolution increases individual’s economic gains. The key assumption is that human populations are structured into groups, and that cultural learning is more likely to occur within groups than between groups. Then, if groups are sufficiently isolated and there are potential gains from specialization and exchange, stable stratification can sometimes result. This model predicts that stratification is favored, ceteris paribus, by (1) greater surplus production, (2) more equitable divisions of the surplus among specialists, (3) greater cultural isolation among subpopulations within a society, and (4) more weight given to economic success by cultural learners. We also analyze how competition among societies, both egalitarian societies and those with differing degrees of stratification, influences the long-run evolution of the institutional forms that support social stratification. In our discussion, we illustrate the model using two ethnographic cases, explore the relationships between our model and other existing approaches to social stratification within anthropology, and compare our model to the emergence of heritable divisions of labor in other species. |
| Keywords: | Length 43 pages |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2007-20&r=evo |
| By: | B. Douglas Bernheim; Antonio Rangel |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a choice-theoretic framework for evaluating economic welfare with the following features. (1) In principle, it is applicable irrespective of the positive model used to describe behavior. (2) It subsumes standard welfare economics both as a special case (when standard choice axioms are satisfied) and as a limiting case (when behavioral anomalies are small). (3) Like standard welfare economics, it requires only data on choices. (4) It is easily applied in the context of specific behavioral theories, such as the [beta], [delta] model of time inconsistency, for which it has novel normative implications. (5) It generates natural counterparts for the standard tools of applied welfare analysis, including compensating and equivalent variation, consumer surplus, Pareto optimality, and the contract curve, and permits a broad generalization of the of the first welfare theorem. (6) Though not universally discerning, it lends itself to principled refinements. |
| JEL: | D01 D60 H40 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13737&r=evo |
| By: | Astrid Matthey (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany); Tobias Regner (Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We investigate to what extent genuine social preferences can explain observed other-regarding behavior. In a social dilemma situation (a dictator game variant), people can choose whether to learn about the consequences of their choice for the receiver. We ï¬nd that a majority of the people that show other-regarding behavior when the payoffs of the receiver are known chose to ignore them if possible. This behavior is inconsistent with genuine other-regarding preferences. Our model explains other-regarding behavior as avoiding cognitive dissonance: People do not behave fairly because they genuinely care for others, but because they like to think of themselves as being fair. The model can explain our data as well as earlier experimental data. |
| Keywords: | social preferences, experiments, social dilemma, cognitive dissonance |
| JEL: | C9 C7 D8 |
| Date: | 2007–12–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-109&r=evo |
| By: | J. Heinrich |
| Abstract: | This paper lays out an evolutionary theory for the cognitive foundations and cultural emergence of the extravagant displays (e.g., ritual mutilation, animal sacrifice, and martyrdom) that have so often tantalized social scientists, as well as more mundane actions that influence cultural learning and historical processes. In Part I, I use the logic of natural selection to build a theory for how and why seemingly costly displays influence the cognitive processes associated with cultural learning—why do “actions speak louder than words.†The core idea is that cultural learners can avoid being manipulated by their potential models (those they are inclined to learn from) if they are biased toward models whose actions/displays would seem costly to the model if he held beliefs different from those he expresses verbally. I call these actions inferentially potent displays. Predictions are tested with experimental work from psychology. In Part II, I examine the implications for cultural evolution of this evolved bias in human cultural learning. The formal analytical model shows that this learning bias creates evolutionarily stable sets of interlocking beliefs and individually-costly practices. Part III explores how cultural evolution, driven by competition among groups or institutions stabilized at alternative sets of these interlocking belief-practice combinations, has led to the association of costly acts, often in the form of rituals, with deeper commitments to group beneficial ideologies, higher levels of cooperation within groups, and greater success in competition with other groups or institutions. Predictions are explored with existing cross-cultural, ethnographic, ethnohistorical and sociological data. I close by briefly sketching some further implications of these ideas for the study of religion and ritual. |
| Keywords: | Length 51 pages |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2007-21&r=evo |
| By: | Astrid Matthey (Max-Planck-Institute of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The paper introduces the concept of adjustment utility, that is, reference-dependent utility from expectations. It offers an explanation for observed preferences that cannot be explained with existing models, and yields new predictions for individual decision making. The model gives a simple explanation for, e.g., why people are reluctant to change their plans even when these turn out to be unexpectedly costly; people's aversion towards positive but false information, which cannot be explained with previous models; and the increasing acceptance of risks when people get used to them. |
| Keywords: | utility, expectations, reference-dependent preferences, anticipation, prospect theory, experiments |
| JEL: | D11 D81 D84 C99 |
| Date: | 2008–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2008-003&r=evo |