We analyze the behavior of producers who compete through price competition in a social environment from a sociological point of view. The standard model of Bertrand price competition is enriched with producers who follow a "Win Cooperate, Lose Defect" (WCLD) strategy. This strategy is a...

There is continuing debate about what explains cooperation and self-sacrifice in nature and in particular in humans. This paper suggests a new way to think about this famous problem. I argue that, for an evolutionary biologist as well as a quantitative social scientist, the triangle of two...

In many social situations, individuals endeavor to find the single best possible partner, but are constrained to evaluate the candidates in sequence. Examples include the search for mates, economic partnerships, or any other long-term ties where the choice to interact involves two parties....

Theoretical and empirical studies have generally weighed the effect of peer punishment and pool punishment for sanctioning free riders separately. However, these sanctioning mechanisms often pose a puzzling tradeoff between efficiency and stability in detecting and punishing free riders. Here,...

In this article, a modelling framework for the information transmission between agents in an evolutionary game setting is proposed. Agents observe traits which reflect past and present behaviour and success of other agents. If agents imitate more successful agents based on these traits, the...