This paper considers a dynamic model of the evolution of open source software projects, focusing on the evolution of quality, contributing programmers, and users who contribute customer support to other users. Programmers who have used open source software are motivated by reciprocal altruism to...

A common feature of the literature on the evolution of preferences is that evolution favors nonmaterialistic preferences only if preference types are observable at least to some degree. We argue that this result is due to the assumption that in each state of the evolutionary dynamics some...

This chapter critically analyses contributions to evolutionary game theory by such writers as Robert Trivers, John Maynard-Smith, and Robert Axelrod. It develops four key arguments. First, that the behavioral propensities that manifest themselves in altruistic behavior are empirically relevant,...

This paper presents an evolutionary model in which altruists and egoists simultaneously survive natural selection. Successive generations of randomly paired agents play a two-stage game consisting first of a choice of technology and second a choice of effort level. This setting induces a form of...

In a convincing analysis of the conditions and strength of altruism, Bester and Guth [Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 34, 1998, 193-209] unfortunately restrict the interpretation of their results. Their paper provides us with an analysis of the conditions and strength of...

This paper studies the evolution of both characteristics of reciprocity - the willingness to reward friendly behavior and the willingness to punish hostile behavior. Firstly, preferences for rewarding as well as preferences for punishing can survive evolution provided individuals interact within...

This paper represents the third part of a research work dealing with the integration of economic efficiency and equity considered as a no-envy concept. Specifically, I examine here the problem of reduction of the malicious envy in a cultural evolutionary context. In fact, both in the case of...

Family businesses make up forty percent of the Fortune 500 companies in the US, generate about two-thirds of the German GDP, employ about one-half of the labor force in Britain, and account for the majority of the private economies in developing countries. This paper develops a theory of family...

Previous work on the effects of private income transfers has been confined to intra-family interactions. One implication of this work is that such transfers benefit recipients by insuring against labor market risks. Allowing for equilibrium labor market responses, however, one would expect the...

Previous work on the effects of private income transfers has been confined to intra-family interactions. One implication of this work is that such transfers benefit recipients by insuring against labor market risks. Allowing for equilibrium labor market responses, however, one would expect the...