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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Alessandro Cigno |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the literature concerning the evolution of cultural traits in general and preferences in particular, and the emergence and persistence of rules or norms, from a family per-spective. In models where every new person is effectively the clone of an existing one (either a parent or anyone else), there may be evolution only in the demographic sense that the share of the population who hold a certain trait increases or decreases. Evolution in the strict sense of new traits making their appearance occurs in models where the trait characterizing any given member of any given generation is a combination of traits drawn at random from those represented in the previous generation. Preferences may be altruistic or non-altruistic, but individuals may behave as if they were altruistic even if they are not, because a rule or norm may make it in their interest to do so. Evolutionary stability and renegotiation proofness play analogous roles, the former by selecting altruistic preferences, and the latter by selecting cooperation-inducing rules. |
| Keywords: | evolution, preferences, family rules, social norms, socialization, matching, hold-up problem |
| JEL: | Z10 C78 D01 D02 D13 J13 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9226&r= |
| By: | Katharina Erhardt; Simon Haenni |
| Abstract: | Can culture explain persistent differences in economic activity among individuals and across regions? A novel measure of cultural origin enables us to contrast the entrepreneurial activity of individuals located in the same municipality but whose ancestors lived just on opposite sides of the Swiss language border in the 18th century. Individuals with ancestry from the German-speaking side create 20% more firms than those with ancestry from the French-speaking side. These differences persist over generations and independent of the predominant culture at the current location. Yet, founders’ ancestry does not affect exit or growth of newly-founded firms. A model of entrepreneurial choice and complementary survey evidence suggest that the empirical patterns are mainly explained by differences in preferences, rather than skill. The results have sizable economic implications, accounting for 120,000 additional jobs over a period of 15 years. |
| Keywords: | culture, entrepreneurship, natural experiment, spatial RDD |
| JEL: | D22 L26 O12 Z10 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9198&r= |
| By: | Horrell, Sara; Humphries, Jane; Weisdorf, Jacob |
| Abstract: | Malthus believed that rising real wages encouraged earlier marriage, higher fertility and a growing population. But diminishing returns in agriculture meant that an organic economy could not keep pace. Excess labour and rising food prices drove wages down and brought population growth to a halt. Studies testing this hypothesis have focussed on the relationship between population growth and men’s wages, typically overlooking women and children’s economic activities and influence on demographic outcomes. New daily and annual wage series, including women and children, enable these missing actors to be incorporated into a more complete account of Malthus’s hypothesis. New findings emerge: the demographic reaction to wage changes was gendered. Early-modern bachelors responded to rising male wages by marrying earlier, whereas spinsters responded to rising female wages by delaying marriage. Our evidence suggests that women played a key role in England’s low- fertility demographic regime and escape from the Malthusian trap. More tentatively, we consider the demographic regime in medieval England. Although marriage was related to earnings, the size of the population was a forceful determinant of economic outcomes. While superficially similar in terms of the prevalence of late marriage and low nuptiality, this regime was consolidated by poverty and social control absent the female agency of the later era. |
| JEL: | N33 |
| Date: | 2020–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:105553&r= |
| By: | Moritz Breul; Fabio Pruß; |
| Abstract: | Hitherto, the path-dependent understanding of regional diversification in Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) has drawn largely on insights into industrialized countries. However, in the past few decades several regions in the Global South have undergone rapid structural transformations despite starting out with unfavourable regional asset bases. This raises the question as to whether the strong emphasis on endogenous capabilities in EEG also provides a sound theoretical framework for explaining these tremendous diversification dynamics. This paper therefore aims to re-evaluate the wider validity of the path-dependent conceptualization of regional diversification in the context of a lower-middle income economy. To this end, we analyse the diversification of Vietnamese regions between 2006 and 2015. In order to take into account context-specific conditions that characterize Vietnam’s economy, we add the role of foreign-owned firms and state-owned enterprises to the conceptualization of regional diversification processes. While the role of relatedness holds true for Vietnam, the presence of foreign- owned firms allowed Vietnamese regions to break away from path dependency and diversify to unrelated industries. The findings highlight that only by adapting the analysis to context-specific conditions are we able to understand how regional diversification takes place across different settings. |
| Keywords: | Regional diversification, relatedness, Evolutionary Economic Geography, path creation, Vietnam |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2124&r= |
| By: | Ali al-Nowaihi; Sanjit Dhami |
| Abstract: | We formulate a general theory of preferences over outcome-time-probability triplets and decompose uncertainty into risk and hazard. We define the delay, defer, shift and certainty functions that can be uniquely elicited from behaviour. These individually determine stationarity, the common difference effect and its converse; constant, decreasing and increasing impatience; additivity, subadditivity and super additivity; probability independence, the certainty effect and its converse. We propose a general discounted utility model which encompasses the main empirically supported discounted utility models. We show that our axioms on preferences are satisfied in our general discounted utility model. Finally, we discuss the various explanations of the common difference effect. |
| Keywords: | time preferences, preferences under uncertainty, discounted utility models, common difference effect, impatience, additivity, certainty effect, probability weighting function, survival function |
| JEL: | D15 D91 D81 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9215&r= |
| By: | Michael Fritsch (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany); Martin Obschonka (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia); Fabian Wahl (University of Hohenheim, Germany); Michael Wyrwich (University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany) |
| Abstract: | A region’s present-day economic performance can be deeply anchored in historical factors. We provide the first systematic evidence of a deep imprinting effect in the context of Roman rule in the south-western part of Germany nearly 2,000 years ago. Our analysis reveals that regions in the former Roman part of Germany show a stronger entrepreneurship and innovation culture today, evident by higher levels of quantity and quality entrepreneurship and innovation. The data indicate that this lasting 'Roman effect' was constituted by the early establishment of interregional social and economic exchange and related infrastructure. Our findings thus help in unpacking the hidden cultural roots of present-day economic performance, with important implications for research and economic policy. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, innovation, historical roots, Romans, Limes |
| JEL: | N9 O1 I31 |
| Date: | 2021–08–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2021-012&r= |
| By: | Marc Oliver Rieger (University of Trier); Thorsten Hens (University of Zurich - Department of Banking and Finance; Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH); Swiss Finance Institute); Mei Wang (WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management) |
| Abstract: | Time preferences are central to human decision making; therefore, a thorough understanding of their international differences is highly relevant. Previous measurements, however, vary widely in their methodology, from questions answered on the Likert scale to lottery-type questions. We show that these different measurements correlate to a large degree and that they have a common factor that can predict a broad spectrum of variables: the countries’ credit ratings, their innovation, gas prices (as a proxy for environmental protection), body mass index (as a proxy for health consciousness), and average years of school attendance. The resulting data on this time preference factor for N=117 countries and regions will be highly useful for further research. Our aggregation method is applicable to merge cross-cultural studies that measure the same latent construct with different methodologies. |
| Keywords: | time preferences |
| JEL: | D90 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp2153&r= |