Carrot or Stick? The Evolution of Reciprocal Preferences in a Haystack Model

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Herold, Florian
• 署名单位: Otto Friedrich University Bamberg
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.102.2.914
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 914-940
• 关键词: natural-selection; HOMO-ECONOMICUS; BEHAVIOR; altruism; fairness

摘要

We study the evolution of both characteristics of reciprocity: the willingness to reward and the willingness to punish. First, both preferences for rewarding and preferences for punishing can survive provided that individuals interact within separate groups. Second, rewarders survive only in coexistence with self-interested preferences, but punishers either vanish or dominate the population entirely. Third, the evolution of preferences for rewarding and the evolution of preferences for punishing influence each other decisively. Rewarders can invade a population of self-interested players. The existence of rewarders enhances the evolutionary success of punishers, who then crowd out all other preferences. (JEL C71, C72, C73, D64, K42)