40 posts · 36,702 views
I am an Australian economist and a student completing a PhD at the intersection of economics and evolutionary biology. I am also a reformed lawyer and Treasury bureaucrat and previously worked as an environmental campaigner. I blog at Evolving Economics, a blog of my thoughts on economics, evolution and those areas in between. You can also find me on twitter at http://twitter.com/jasonacollins
Evolving Economics
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- April 22, 2013
- 06:56 AM
- 74 views
Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
Even though I consider that I am across the literature at the boundary of economics and evolutionary biology, now and then an article pops up that I somehow missed. The latest article of this type is a 2009 article by Douglas Kenrick and colleagues, titled (as is this post) Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making. [...]The post Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Kenrick, D., Griskevicius, V., Sundie, J., Li, N., Li, Y., & Neuberg, S. (2009) Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making. Social Cognition, 27(5), 764-785. DOI: 10.1521/soco.2009.27.5.764
- April 8, 2013
- 07:22 AM
- 84 views
The evolution of happiness
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
When we experience positive events, we feel happy. But happiness adjusts, with the effects of a positive event normally short-lived. Over the long-term, happiness tends to float around a stable mean. Happiness is also strongly related to our position relative to our peers. How happy we are with our income depends on everyone else’s income. [...]The post The evolution of happiness appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Rayo, L., & Becker, G. (2007) Evolutionary Efficiency and Happiness. Journal of Political Economy, 115(2), 302-337. DOI: 10.1086/516737
Rayo, L., & Becker, G. (2007) Habits, Peers, and Happiness: An Evolutionary Perspective. American Economic Review, 97(2), 487-491. DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.2.487
- April 1, 2013
- 09:16 AM
- 49 views
Economics from a biological viewpoint
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
One of the earlier advocates of using evolutionary biology in economics was Jack Hirshleifer, a professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Hirshleifer was author of The Dark Side of the Force: Economic Foundations of Conflict Theory, which includes evolutionary analysis of cooperation and conflict, and some discussion of the unification of law, [...]The post Economics from a biological viewpoint appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Hirshleifer, J. (1977) Economics from a Biological Viewpoint. The Journal of Law and Economics, 20(1), 1. DOI: 10.1086/466891
- March 27, 2013
- 09:08 AM
- 71 views
Using the Malthusian model to measure technology
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
Underlying much of Ashraf and Galor’s analysis of genetic diversity and economic development is a Malthusian model of the world. The Malthusian model, as the name suggests, originates in the work of Thomas Malthus (pictured). Malthus had the misfortune of providing an excellent description of the world across millennia, just at the point at which the model [...]The post Using the Malthusian model to measure technology appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Ashraf, Q., & Galor, O. (2011) Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch. American Economic Review, 101(5), 2003-2041. DOI: 10.1257/aer.101.5.2003
- January 14, 2013
- 07:41 AM
- 105 views
O-ring and foolproof sectors
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
In my last post, I described Kremer’s O-ring theory of economic development. Kremer’s insight was that if production in an economy consists of many discrete tasks and failure in any one of those tasks can ruin the final output, small differences in skills can drive large differences in output between firms. This can lead to [...]The post O-ring and foolproof sectors appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Jones, G. (2013) The O-ring sector and the Foolproof sector: An explanation for skill externalities. Journal of Economic Behavior , 1-10. DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2012.10.014
- January 11, 2013
- 05:37 AM
- 96 views
Kremer’s O-ring theory of economic development
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
The latest issue of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization has a new paper by Garett Jones (ungated version here) on the O-ring theory of economic development. Its been floating around as a working paper for a few years, so its nice to see it get a home. But before I post about that paper, I thought [...]The post Kremer’s O-ring theory of economic development appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Kremer, M. (1993) The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108(3), 551-575. DOI: 10.2307/2118400
- November 16, 2012
- 12:46 AM
- 196 views
The decline in intelligence?
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
Two papers in which Gerald Crabtree argues that human intelligence has declined since a peak thousands of years ago (Part I and Part II) have been the subject of the popular science media rounds over the last week (such as this piece in The Independent). Crabtree’s argument has two components. The first is that intelligence is fragile and [...]The post The decline in intelligence? appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Crabtree, G. (2012) Our fragile intellect. Part I. Trends in Genetics. DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2012.10.002
Crabtree, G. (2012) Our fragile intellect. Part II. Trends in Genetics. DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2012.10.003
- October 16, 2012
- 06:45 AM
- 317 views
Nobel prizes and marriage markets
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
The committee for selecting the 2012 winners of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (remember, it is not an original Nobel Prize) seems to have done a better job than the Peace Prize Committee. Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapely have been awarded the prize ”for the theory of stable allocations [...]... Read more »
Gale, D., & Shapley, L. (1962) College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage. The American Mathematical Monthly, 69(1), 9. DOI: 10.2307/2312726
- September 24, 2012
- 05:52 AM
- 214 views
Socioeconomic status versus fitness
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
One common explanation for fertility declines over the last 200 years is that parents have shifted to investing in quality of children, rather than quantity. What is often not made clear is that this quality-quantity trade-off has two dimensions. The first trade-off relates to socioeconomic status (SES), with greater numbers of children resulting in less investment in [...]... Read more »
Goodman, Anna, Koupil, Ilona, & Lawson, David W. (2012) Low fertility increases descendant socioeconomic position but reduces long-term fitness in a modern post-industrial society. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1415
- August 30, 2012
- 08:44 AM
- 254 views
Does equality increase conspicuous consumption?
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
An article in the European Business Review has put me onto an interesting paper by Nailya Ordabayeva and Pierre Chandon in the Journal of Consumer Research. The crux of the paper and article is that conspicuous consumption may be higher in a more equal society as it provides an opportunity for a larger increase in [...]... Read more »
Ordabayeva, Nailya, & Chandon, Pierre. (2011) Getting ahead of the Joneses: When Equality Increases Conspicuous Consumption among Bottom-Tier Consumers. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(1), 27-41. DOI: 10.1086/658165
- July 7, 2012
- 12:35 AM
- 356 views
Conspicuous consumption and poverty traps
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
Poverty is no barrier to conspicuous consumption. As Banerjee and Duflo wrote in Poor Economics: One hidden assumption in our description of the poverty trap is that the poor eat as much as they can. … Yet, this is not what we see. Most people living with less than 99 cents a day do not [...]... Read more »
Moav, Omer, & Neeman, Zvika. (2012) Saving Rates and Poverty: The Role of Conspicuous Consumption and Human Capital. The Economic Journal. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2012.02516.x
- May 11, 2012
- 07:06 AM
- 386 views
The genetic architecture of economic and political preferences
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
Evidence from twin studies implies that economic and political traits have a significant heritable component. That is, some of the variation between people is attributable to genetic variation. Despite this, there has been a failure to demonstrate that the heritability can be attributed to specific genes. Candidate gene studies, in which a single gene (or [...]... Read more »
Benjamin DJ, Cesarini D, van der Loos MJ, Dawes CT, Koellinger PD, Magnusson PK, Chabris CF, Conley D, Laibson D, Johannesson M.... (2012) The genetic architecture of economic and political preferences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 22566634
- February 29, 2012
- 07:21 AM
- 422 views
Why do married men earn more?
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
Even after controlling for observable traits such as IQ, married men earn more. Bryan Caplan suggests there are three economic explanations for this male marriage premium: 1. Ability bias: Qualities that make a man attractive to a woman are also attractive to employers. 2. Human capital: Marriage makes men more productive. 3. Signalling: Marriage signals [...]... Read more »
Ginther, D., & Zavodny, M. (2001) Is the male marriage premium due to selection? The effect of shotgun weddings on the return to marriage. Journal of Population Economics, 14(2), 313-328. DOI: 10.1007/s001480000058
- February 13, 2012
- 07:25 AM
- 509 views
Population genetics and economic growth
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
The title of this post comes from a 2002 paper by Paul Zak and Kwang Woo Park. The title is mildly deceptive, as the paper has many elements and ideas crammed into it beyond population genetics. The model described by the authors includes working, consumption, saving, marriage, genetic diversity, sexual selection, intelligence, beauty, education, the Flynn effect, family [...]... Read more »
Zak, P., & Park, K. (2002) Population Genetics and Economic Growth. Journal of Bioeconomics, 4(1), 1-38. DOI: 10.1023/A:1020604724888
- January 13, 2012
- 07:31 AM
- 603 views
Evolution and education policy
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
A couple of months ago, David Sloan Wilson posted on a project he has been involved in with in the Binghamton City School District, which is also the subject of an article in PLoS ONE by Wilson and his colleagues. The concept behind the project is that “[K]nowledge derived from general evolutionary principles and our own evolutionary [...]... Read more »
Wilson, D., Kauffman, R., & Purdy, M. (2011) A Program for At-Risk High School Students Informed by Evolutionary Science. PLoS ONE, 6(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027826
- December 16, 2011
- 07:15 AM
- 3,130 views
Genoeconomics: molecular genetics and economics
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
The latest issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives has an excellent article by Beauchamp and colleagues titled Molecular Genetics and Economics. It is a nice contrast to another article in the same issue, Charles Manski’s bashing of the heritability straw man, about which I recently blogged. The authors argue that “genoeconomics”, the use of [...]... Read more »
Beauchamp, J., Cesarini, D., Johannesson, M., van der Loos, M., Koellinger, P., Groenen, P., Fowler, J., Rosenquist, J., Thurik, A., & Christakis, N. (2011) Molecular Genetics and Economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(4), 57-82. DOI: 10.1257/jep.25.4.57
- December 13, 2011
- 07:58 AM
- 2,913 views
The use of heritability in policy development
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
The heritability straw man has copped another bashing, this time in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. In it, Charles Manski picks up an old line of argument by Goldberger from 1979 and argues that heritability research is uninformative for the analysis of policy. Manski starts by arguing that heritability estimates are based on the assumption that [...]... Read more »
Manski, C. (2011) Genes, Eyeglasses, and Social Policy. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(4), 83-94. DOI: 10.1257/jep.25.4.83
- August 15, 2011
- 08:14 AM
- 971 views
More people, more ideas – in the long run
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
More people means more ideas. This concept underlies arguments ranging from Julian Simon’s belief that human living conditions will continue to improve through to Bryan Caplan’s argument that we should have more kids. While I don’t always take this concept to the extent of Simon or Caplan (as I have posted on before), the concept [...]... Read more »
Kremer, M. (1993) Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108(3), 681-716. DOI: 10.2307/2118405
- July 16, 2011
- 01:39 AM
- 1,018 views
The growth of atheism
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
Nigel Barber of The Daily Beast (Psychology Today) has posted on a forthcoming article in which he shows that the level of atheism increases with the quality of life. Barber explains the trend as follows: The reasons that churches lose ground in developed countries can be summarized in market terms. First, with better science, and [...]... Read more »
Barber, N. (2011) A Cross-National Test of the Uncertainty Hypothesis of Religious Belief. Cross-Cultural Research. DOI: 10.1177/1069397111402465
- June 10, 2011
- 05:51 AM
- 657 views
Evolution and obesity
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
As I indicated in my recent post on Rob Brooks’s Sex, Genes & Rock ‘n’ Roll, Brooks devotes some time to the issue of obesity (his book is slowly appearing for sale on international sites – such as Amazon UK). Rob has also blogged about obesity and published a paper with Steve Simpson and David [...]... Read more »
Brooks, R., Simpson, S., & Raubenheimer, D. (2010) The price of protein: combining evolutionary and economic analysis to understand excessive energy consumption. Obesity Reviews, 11(12), 887-894. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-789X.2010.00733.x
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