|
on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. (University of Sydney); Dahmann, Sarah C. (University of Melbourne); Kamhöfer, Daniel A. (Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)); Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the predictive power of self-control for individuals and their children using population representative data. We use the well-established Brief Self-Control Scale to demonstrate that people's trait self-control is highly predictive of their life outcomes. Higher self-control is associated with better health, education, and employment outcomes as well as greater financial and overall well-being. Importantly, self-control often adds explanatory power beyond more frequently studied personality traits and economic preferences. The self-control of children is correlated with that of their parents, while higher parental self-control is also linked to fewer behavioral problems among children. Our results suggest that social interventions targeting self-control may be beneficial. |
| Keywords: | Brief Self-Control Scale, personality traits, intergenerational transmission |
| JEL: | D91 D01 J24 |
| Date: | 2021–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14920&r= |
| By: | Khan, Abhimanyu |
| Abstract: | I develop the notion of evolutionary stability of behavioural rules in a game-theoretic setting. Each individual chooses a strategy, possibly taking into account the game's history, and the manner in which he chooses his strategy is encapsulated by a behavioural rule. The payoffs obtained by individuals following a particular behavioural rule determine that rule's fitness. A population is stable if whenever some individuals from an incumbent behavioural rule mutate and follow another behavioural rule, the fitness of each incumbent behavioural rule exceeds that of the mutant behavioural rule. I show that any population comprised of more than one behavioural rule is not stable, and present necessary and sufficient conditions for stability of a population comprised of a single behavioural rule. |
| Keywords: | behavioural rules, evolutionary stability |
| JEL: | C73 |
| Date: | 2021–12–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:111309&r= |
| By: | Guilhem Lecouteux (UCA - Université Côte d'Azur, GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur) |
| Abstract: | Behavioural economics has challenged the normative consensus that agents ought to choose following their own preferences. I argue that normative economists implicitly defended a criterion of the sovereignty of the autonomous consumer, and that current debates in normative behavioural economics arise from disagreements about the nature of the threats to autonomy that are highlighted by behavioural economics. I argue that those disagreements result from diverging ontological conceptions of the 'self' in the literature. I distinguish between the unitary, psychodynamic, and socio-historical conceptions of the self, and show how different positive theories about preferences and the nature of the agent may determine normative positions in normative behavioural economics. |
| Keywords: | preference satisfaction,autonomy,welfare,reconciliation problem,socio-historical self |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03418228&r= |
| By: | Omang O. Messono (University of Douala, Douala, Cameroon); Simplice A. Asongu (Yaoundé, Cameroon) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effects of the historical prevalence of infectious diseases on contemporary entrepreneurship. Previous studies reveal the persistence of the effects of historical diseases on innovation, through the channel of culture. Drawing on the epidemiological origin of institutions, we propose a framework which argues that the impact of infectious disease prevalence on contemporary entrepreneurship is mediated by property rights. The central hypothesis posits that a guarantee of property rights reduces the effect of past diseases on entrepreneurship. Using data from 125 countries, we find strong and robust evidence on the proposed hypothesis and other results. Property rights are higher in countries where the prevalence of diseases was low, which leads to good entrepreneurship scores. In contrast, countries with high disease prevalence did not have time to develop strong institutions to secure property rights. This explains their low level of entrepreneurship today. These results are robust to alternative methods and measures of property rights. Furthermore, our results also confirm the level of development, culture and the digitalization of economies as transmission channels between past diseases and the current level of entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; institutions; diseases; property rights |
| JEL: | I0 J24 I21 I31 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:21/096&r= |
| By: | Adam Zylbersztejn (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet [Saint-Étienne] - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon); Zakaria Babutsidze (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur, OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Nobuyuki Hanaki (Osaka University [Osaka]) |
| Abstract: | We contribute to the ongoing debate in the psychological literature on the role of thin slices of observable information in predicting others' social behavior, and its generalizability to cross-cultural interactions. We experimentally assess the degree to which subjects, drawn from culturally dierent populations (France and Japan), are able to predict strangers' trustworthiness based on a set of visual stimuli (mugshot pictures, neutral videos, loaded videos, all recorded in an additional French sample) under varying cultural distance to the target agent in the recording. Our main nding is that cultural distance is not detrimental for predicting trustworthiness in strangers, but that it may aect the perception of dierent components of communication in social interactions. |
| Keywords: | laboratory experiment,cross-cultural comparison,hidden action game,Trustworthiness,communication |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03432600&r= |
| By: | David H. Wolpert; Michael H. Price; Stefani A. Crabtree; Timothy A. Kohler; Jurgen Jost; James Evans; Peter F. Stadler; Hajime Shimao; Manfred D. Laubichler |
| Abstract: | Historical processes manifest remarkable diversity. Nevertheless, scholars have long attempted to identify patterns and categorize historical actors and influences with some success. A stochastic process framework provides a structured approach for the analysis of large historical datasets that allows for detection of sometimes surprising patterns, identification of relevant causal actors both endogenous and exogenous to the process, and comparison between different historical cases. The combination of data, analytical tools and the organizing theoretical framework of stochastic processes complements traditional narrative approaches in history and archaeology. |
| Date: | 2021–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2112.05876&r= |
| By: | Ozan Isler; Simon Gaechter |
| Abstract: | Peer observation can influence social norm perceptions as well as behavior in various moral domains, but is the tendency to be influenced by and conform with peers domain-general? In an online experiment (N = 815), we studied peer effects in honesty and cooperation and tested the individual-level links between these two moral domains. Participants completed both honesty and cooperation tasks after observing their peers. Consistent with the literature, separate analysis of the two domains indicated both negative and positive peer influences in honesty and in cooperation, with negative influences tending to be stronger. Behavioral tests linking the two domains at the individual-level revealed that cooperative participants were also more honest—a link that was associated with low Machiavellianism scores. While standard personality trait measures showed no links between the two domains in the tendency to conform, individual-level tests suggested that conformism is a domain-general behavioral trait observed across honesty and cooperation. Based on these findings, we discuss the potential of and difficulties in using peer observation to influence social norm compliance as an avenue for further research and as a tool to promote social welfare. |
| Keywords: | honesty, cooperation, peer influence, conformism, social norms |
| JEL: | C91 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9493&r= |
| By: | Benjamin Enke; Thomas Graeber |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the relevance of cognitive uncertainty – subjective uncertainty over one's utility-maximizing action – for understanding and predicting intertemporal choice. The main idea is that when people are cognitively noisy, such as when a decision is complex, they implicitly treat different time delays to some degree alike. By experimentally measuring and manipulating cognitive uncertainty, we document three economic implications of this idea. First, cognitive uncertainty explains various core empirical regularities, such as why people often appear very impatient, why per-period impatience is smaller over long than over short horizons, why discounting is often hyperbolic even when the present is not involved, and why choices frequently violate transitivity. Second, impatience is context-dependent: discounting is substantially more hyperbolic when the decision environment is more complex. Third, cognitive uncertainty matters for choice architecture: people who are nervous about making mistakes are twice as likely to follow expert advice to be more patient. |
| JEL: | D01 D03 |
| Date: | 2021–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29577&r= |