HOMO MORALIS-PREFERENCE EVOLUTION UNDER INCOMPLETE INFORMATION AND ASSORTATIVE MATCHING

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Alger, Ingela; Weibull, Joergen W.
• 署名单位: Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Toulouse School of Economics; Stockholm School of Economics
• 刊物名称: ECONOMETRICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0012-9682
• DOI: 10.3982/ECTA10637
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 2269-2302
• 关键词: cultural transmission; GENETICAL EVOLUTION; SCREENING ETHICS; economic-model; public-goods; altruism; incentives; games; coefficients; ENCOUNTERS

摘要

What preferences will prevail in a society of rational individuals when preference evolution is driven by the resulting payoffs? We show that when individuals' preferences are their private information, a convex combination of selfishness and morality stands out as evolutionarily stable. We call individuals with such preferences homo moralis. At one end of the spectrum is homo oeconomicus, who acts so as to maximize his or her own payoff. At the opposite end is homo kantiensis, who does what would be the right thing to do, in terms of payoffs, if all others would do likewise. We show that the stable degree of moralitythe weight placed on the moral goalis determined by the degree of assortativity in the process whereby individuals are matched to interact.