|
on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Bayer, Péter |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the evolution of behavior governing strategic network formation. I first propose a general framework of evolutionary selection in non-cooperative games played in heterogeneous groups under assortative matching. I show that evolution selects strate-gies that (i) execute altruistic actions towards others in the interaction group with rate of altruism equal to the rate of assortative matching and (ii) are stable against pairwise coali-tional deviations under two qualifications: pairs successfully coordinate their deviations with probability equaling the rate of assortative matching and externalities are taken into account with the same weight. I then restrict the domain of interaction games to strategic network formation and define a new stability concept for networks called ‘evolutionarily stable networks’. The concept fuses ideas of solution concepts used by evolutionary game theory and network formation games. In a game of communication, evolutionarily stable networks prescribe equal information access. In the classic co-authorship game only the least efficient network, the complete network, is evolutionarily stable. Finally, I present an evolutionary model of homophilistic network formation between identity groups and show that extreme high degrees of homophily may persist even in groups with virtually no preference for it; thus societies may struggle to eliminate segregation between identity groups despite becoming increasingly tolerant. |
| Keywords: | Networks; evolution; relatedness; stability, homophily |
| JEL: | C73 D85 |
| Date: | 2023–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:128722&r=evo |
| By: | Rainer Kotschy; Uwe Sunde; Rainer Franz Kotschy |
| Abstract: | Recent evidence shows substantial heterogeneity in time, risk, and social preferences across and within populations; yet little is known about the dynamics of preference heterogeneity across generations. We apply a novel identification strategy based on dyadic differences in preferences using representative data for 80, 000 individuals from 76 countries. Our results document that, among more recent birth cohorts, preferences are more similar across countries and gender gaps in preferences are smaller within countries. This decline in preference heterogeneity across cohorts relates to country-specific differences in preference endowments, population composition, and socioeconomic conditions during formative years, and points at global cultural convergence. |
| Keywords: | patience, willingness to take risks, trust, prosociality, cohort effects |
| JEL: | D01 J10 J11 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10735&r=evo |
| By: | Rusch, Hannes (RS: GSBE UM-BIC, Microeconomics & Public Economics, RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research) |
| Abstract: | Human history as well as our present are ripe with violent intergroup conflicts. Despite more than 2, 000 years of academic engagement with this phenomenon [1] and (way too) much evidence available for analysis [2], we are still short of encompassing theories of human belligerence. Not least, theoretical progress is thwarted by the fact that intergroup conflict is an interface phenomenon: its analysis requires the methods and background knowledge of several academic disciplines. This review pushes for intensified interdisciplinary integration in the study of human warfare. It does so by presenting a selection of pathbreaking theoretical contributions from economics, political science, social psychology, and evolutionary biology, and contrasting their respective insights and blind spots against the results of recent empirical work on human behavior before, during, and after war. As a result, three key areas are identified where theoretical breakthrough is still pending: (i) individual mobilization, (ii) the ambiguous roles of leaders, and (iii) the endogenous and dynamic interaction between conflict and its participants’ malleable preferences. Thus, this review provides an overview of the research frontier and highlights crucial challenges in the theoretical study of human warfare. |
| Date: | 2023–12–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2023014&r=evo |
| By: | Luise Goerges (Leuphana University Lüneburg); Tom Lane (Newcastle University Business School); Daniele Nosenzo (Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University); Silvia Sonderegger (School of Economics and Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | Building on findings showing that laws exert a causal effect on social norms, this paper investigates whether this “expressive power of law†differs by gender or race. We develop a model to show that such differences are theoretically plausible. We then use an incentivized vignette experiment to test whether these differences are empirically relevant. Results from an online sample of around 4000 subjects confirm that laws causally influence social norms. However, we find little evidence of a differential effect across gender or race, suggesting that gender and race biases in the legal system are driven by other mechanisms than differences in the expressive power of law. |
| Keywords: | Social Norms, Law, Expressive Function of Law, Gender Gap, Racial Bias |
| JEL: | C91 C92 D9 K1 K42 |
| Date: | 2023–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2023-12&r=evo |
| By: | Daniel Oto-Peralías (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the link between the historical presence of communal goods and the emergence of social capital. I conduct a survey to compare individuals from a town where communal lands have persisted since medieval times with individuals from neighboring-similar towns. I find that individuals exposed to communal lands have higher local social capital as they trust their neighbors more, have more local altruism, are more interested in local politics, and have a better knowledge about the town’s politics and history. Importantly, the effect is mainly present in individuals with family roots in the town, and there is no evidence of a positive effect on social capital beyond the local community. |
| Keywords: | common lands, social capital, history, Spain. |
| JEL: | N36 D64 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pab:wpaper:23.09&r=evo |
| By: | Taisuke Imai; Klaus M. Schmidt |
| Abstract: | Loss aversion postulates that people prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains of equal size. It is a central part of prospect theory and, according to Daniel Kahneman, “the most significant contribution of psychology to behavioral economics” (Kahneman, 2011, p. 300). It has powerful implications for decision theory and has been fruitfully applied in many subfields of economics. However, because the reference point is often not well defined and loss aversion interacts with other behavioral biases, there is some controversy about the concept. |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1218&r=evo |
| By: | Barber, Luke (University of Western Australia); Jetter, Michael (University of Western Australia); Krieger, Tim (University of Freiburg) |
| Abstract: | Can religiosity sway a society's propensity for violence against outgroups? We first introduce two state-year-level religiosity measures for several pre-Enlightenment European states with the frequencies of (i) religious language in book publications and (ii) Christian names of newborns. To identify causal effects on warfare, we exploit the local visibility of solar eclipses – phenomena orthogonal to climatic, cultural, economic, environmental, and institutional developments that, in pre-Enlightenment Europe, were overwhelmingly viewed as supernatural, religious events. Accounting for dyad- and year-fixed effects, we observe positive, statistically significant, and quantitatively sizeable effects on subsequent attack war onset. Reduced form estimates, robustness checks (e.g., acknowledging dyad-specific time trends), and placebo exercises yield consistent patterns. Exploring mechanisms, religious terminology explicit to religious outgroups (specifically Jews and Muslims) spikes in solar eclipse years and predicts attack war onset, particularly against Islamic states. Finally, consistent with the idea of a religious primer highlighting ingroup-outgroup demarcations and exacerbating tensions along such lines, city-year-level solar eclipses also predict (i) Jewish expulsions and (ii) witch trials in pre-Enlightenment Europe. |
| Keywords: | religiosity, warfare, ingroup-outgroup demarcations, anti-Semitism, witch trials |
| JEL: | D74 F51 H56 N33 N43 Z12 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16586&r=evo |