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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Kai Barron (WZB - Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung); Steffen Huck (UCL - University College of London [London], WZB - Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung); Philippe Jehiel (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, UCL - University College of London [London]) |
| Abstract: | This study explores selection neglect in an experimental investment game where individuals can learn from others' outcomes. Experiment 1 examines aggregate-level equilibrium behavior. We find strong evidence of selection neglect and corroborate several comparative static predictions of Jehiel's (2018) model, showing that the severity of the bias is aggravated by the sophistication of other individuals and moderated when information is more correlated across individuals. Experiment 2 focuses on individual decision-making, isolating the influence of beliefs from possible confounding factors. This allows us to classify individuals according to their degree of naivety and explore the limits of, and potential remedies for, selection neglect. |
| Keywords: | Selection neglect, beliefs, overoptimism, survivorship bias, experiment |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-04154345&r=evo |
| By: | Lewis Dunia Butinda; Aimable Amani Lameke; Nathan Nunn; Max Posch; Raúl Sánchez de la Sierra |
| Abstract: | Within the field of economics, despite being widespread, African traditional religions tend to be perceived as unimportant and ignored when studying economic decision-making. This study tests whether this presumption is correct. Using daily data on business decisions and performance of beer sellers in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, we study the importance of traditional religious beliefs for economic behavior and outcomes. Beer sellers perceive the risk of theft in their shops to be higher than it actually is, causing them to hold lower inventories, more frequent stock-outs, and reduced profits. We facilitate randomly-timed access to commonly-used, but typically prohibitively expensive rituals, which reduce the perceived risk of theft. We find that the rituals partially correct the beliefs about the risk of theft for sellers who report believing in the ritual’s efficacy. These sellers purchase more inventory, experience fewer stock-outs, and have larger sales, revenues, and profits. To distinguish the belief in the efficacy of the ritual from other incidental effects of participation, we analyze these outcomes for sellers who do not believe in the ritual. For these individuals, we find none of the observed effects. The findings provide evidence of the importance of African traditional religions, demonstrating that they can influence behavior and outcomes that are important for economic development. |
| JEL: | L81 O12 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31430&r=evo |
| By: | Squartini, Andrea |
| Abstract: | This article is a reflection proposing an ecologically plausible motive and an epigenetically-controlled mechanism to explain the otherwise unexplainable behaviour that leads remarkably consistent fractions of the population to choose totally irrational standpoints irrespective of their level of intelligence or education. It stems from three independent pieces of evidence, each of which is ascertained common knowledge, and which are hereby linked together: #1: A non-negligible rate of the members of every nation’s population takes and keeps positions that are against mainstream opinions, also when such choice turns out to be totally detrimental for their own social life, credibility, employment, and/or health. The massive anti-vaccination coming-out in response to Covid-19 emergency has uncovered the extent of these phenomena and put in evidence the absence of correlation with education level and intellective qualities of people, involving even rather successful and bright individuals as Nobel laureates disregarding their loss of reputation, or top sport players missing chances to win trophies and to maintain sponsored contracts. #2: In biology, a given rate of mutant phenotypes involving a minority of the population, is at the basis of the Darwinian selection process. Although some mutations could affect the fitness of the individuals bearing them, the process can ensure species survival in the unlikely circumstance that a temporally and spatially unpredictable event would occur, for which the mutant trait would result the right match to avoid negative consequences. It is as if, once in a thousand times, an otherwise weird and self-harming choice would result the winning one. And, in order to avoid that all the progeny descending from the survivor would carry the ‘crimpled’ phenotype, in evolved lineages, mutation mechanisms can use epigenetic instead of genetic circuitries, allowing clean genome reset at reproduction. #3: Epigenetics has nowadays been shown to occur also at behavioural level, regulating human neurological expression, affecting social conduct, impulsive actions and connected beliefs. Putting the pieces together, # 2 is the motive and #3 is the mechanism that explain #1. |
| Date: | 2023–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:x3hej&r=evo |
| By: | Michael Peneder |
| Abstract: | This paper advances a dynamic rationale for competitiveness policy that focuses on an economy's ability to evolve in order to achieve high real incomes along with desired qualitative changes in the socio-economic system. It highlights that the ubiquitous "rationalities of failure", either of markets, governments, or systems, are rooted in a peculiar habit of accepting hypothetical perfect states as normative benchmarks. In contrast, competitiveness policy starts from the objectives that the system wants to achieve. By combining the structuralist ontology of the micro, meso and macro levels of development with the basic system functions of evolutionary change, a general typology is developed that differentiates, organizes, and integrates various economic policies according to their respective contributions to the evolvability of the system. Among other advantages, the proposed concept of competitiveness policy allows (i) to replace the negative "logic of failure" with the active pursuit of dynamic development goals, (ii) to break the ideologically afflicted dichotomy between "vertical" and "horizontal" policies and (iii) to better align the theoretical rationale with the actual perception of the societal purpose of public interventions by most policy agents. |
| Keywords: | Austrian economics, Digitization, central bank digital currency (CBDC), crypto coins, currency competition, evolution of money, general ledger |
| Date: | 2023–07–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2023:i:662&r=evo |