Cultural transmission arguably plays an important role in the determination of many fundamental preference traits (e.g., discounting, risk aversion and altruism) and most cultural traits, social norms, and ideological tenets ( e.g., attitudes towards family and fertility practices, and attitudes...

In this chapter, I consider the benefits of viewing history through an evolutionary lens. In recent decades, a field of research has emerged, which builds on foundations from biological evolution to study culture within an evolutionary framework. I begin the chapter by discussing the theory...

At each age an organism produces energy by foraging and allocates this energy among reproduction, survival, growth, and intergenerational transfers. We characterize the optimal set of allocation decisions that maximizes reproductive fitness. Time preference (the discount rate) is derived from...

The importance of evolutionary forces for comparative economic performance across societies has been the focus of a vibrant literature, highlighting the roles played by the Neolithic Revolution and the prehistoric “out of Africa” migration of anatomically modern humans in generating...

Cognitive Economics is the economics of what is in people's minds. It is a vibrant area of research (much of it within Behavioral Economics, Labor Economics and the Economics of Education) that brings into play novel types of data—especially novel types of survey data. Such data highlight the...

This paper investigates progress in the development of models capable of empirically analyzing the evolution of industries. It starts with a parallel between the development of empirical frameworks for static and dynamic analysis of industries: both adapted their frameworks from models taken...

We document the evolution of the newly created market for frequency response within the UK electricity system over a six-year period. Firms competed in price while facing considerable initial uncertainty about market demand and rival behavior. We show that over time prices stabilized, converging...

This research suggests that a Darwinian evolution of entrepreneurial spirit played a significant role in the process of economic development and the dynamics of inequality within and across societies. The study argues that entrepreneurial spirit evolved non-monotonically in the course of human...

In a model of evolution driven by conflict between societies more powerful states have an advantage. When the influence of outsiders is small we show that this results in a tendency to hegemony. In a simple example in which institutions differ in their "exclusiveness" we find that these...

This paper documents the speed of evolution (or lack thereof) of a range of values and beliefs of different generations of US immigrants, and interprets the evidence in the light of a model of socialization and identity choice. Convergence to the norm differs greatly across cultural attitudes....