Bringing institutions into evolutionary economics: another view with links to changes in physical and social technologies

Like Nelson (2002), I make a case for bringing institutions into evolutionary economics. But unlike Nelson, who defines institutions as social technologies consisting of rules-routines, I define them in agreement with North (1990) as humanly devised rules-constraints - such as formal law and informal social norms - but also view them, to accommodate most of Nelson's approach, as constraining the variety of rules-routines employable by agents. I show that this definition has advantages for communicating with modern institutional analysis, for clarifying how institutions can influence, and be influenced by, changes in physical and social technologies, and for producing policy implications.JEL Classification: B52, B15, N01, A10I thank Niclas Berggren, Thrainn Eggertsson, Gunnar Eliasson, Geoffrey Hodgson, Dan Johansson, Nils Karlson, Staffan Laestadius, Richard Nelson, Mark Perlman, Viktor Vanberg, Gerhard Wegner, the participants of seminars at the University of Jena and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and two anonymous referees for valuable comments on earlier drafts.     

On social norms and beliefs: A model of manager environmental behavior

A prevailing view in the literature states that social sanctions can support, in equilibrium, high levels of obedience to a costly norm. The reason is that social disapproval and stigmatization faced by the disobedient are highest when disobedience is the exception rather than the rule in society. In contrast, the Bayesian model introduced here shows that, imperfect information causes the expected social sanction to be lowest precisely when obedience is more common. This, amongst other findings, draws a distinct line between social and moral norms, both of which may depend on others’ behavior but not on action observability. The implications of the use of non-Bayesian belief formation rules by society, namely a representativeness rule (overweighting the signals) and conservativism (overweighting the prior), for payoff functions and equilibria are explored.     

How much versus who: which social norms information is more effective?

We conduct an experiment to investigate how different types of information about social norms affect individuals’ stated contributions to a specific pro-environment program, a student ‘green fee’, in the context of a referendum. Compared to students that receive no information about peer contributions, on average, students that receive information about the dollar value range of contributions at peer institutions contribute less while students that learn about the high percentage of students voting ‘yes’ on green fee programs at peer institutions contribute more. The results are economically significant as the absolute values of both effects represent approximately 25% of average contributions. These results suggest that information about participation rates can be more effective than information about dollar amounts in encouraging contributions to environmental initiatives. Of interest to stated preference researchers, we find that results do not change when controlling for self-selection into survey completion.     

Conceptions of property rights and norms

The social norm literature in law and economics fails to account for the differences between the two major conceptions of property rights. The differences between the two conceptions affect people’s utility function by affecting how increases in property rights are perceived. This paper discusses how the modern, in rem, conception evolved from an older, in personam, conception; it also discusses how economics has absorbed the modern, in rem, conception. The paper demonstrates that if people do not perceive the benefits of modern property rights, they will follow their social norms if the government or planner imposes modern property rights on them. In the end, this allows one to make a fuller discussion of why norms economize information. This discussion has various consequences ranging from developmental economics to financial market economics and cannot be ignored.

Procedural Rationality and Institutions: The Production of Norms by Means of Norms

This paper deals with a cognitivist approach to the problem of how social and economic institutions are formed. The economic framework I use is Simon's model of procedural rationality, integrating a cognitivist approach into a game structure. In game theory norms are seen as conventions, but not all institutions can be explained by game theory models. In cognition-based approaches, the creation and maintenance of institutions is the outcome of a search for satisficing norms. According to Simon and Newell (1972), agents faced with problems to solve visualise a problem as an area of potential situations to examine in order to establish analogical problem structures. In my approach, a norm can be defined within a system of norms that form in a historical-evolutionary dimension, suggesting a path in norm-forming processes.     

Money or friends: Social identity and deception in networks

Strategic communication occurs in virtually all committee decision environments. Theory suggests that small differences in monetary incentives between committee members can leave deception a strategically optimal decision (Crawford and Sobel, 1982; Galeotti et al., 2013). At the same time, in natural environments social incentives can also play an important role in determining the way people share or withhold truthful information. Unfortunately, little is known about how monetary and social incentives interact to determine truth-telling. We investigate this issue by first building a novel model and then testing its equilibrium predictions using laboratory data. In the absence of social identity, the model׳s predictions are supported: there is more truthful communication between those who share monetary incentives than those who do not. We find that the effect of identity is asymmetric: sharing the same identity does not promote truth-telling but holding different identities reduces truthfulness. Overall, as compared to environments lacking social identity, committees with both monetary and social incentives exhibit truthful communication substantially less frequently.     

Regional social capital: Embeddedness, innovation networks and regional economic development

Technology is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for regional economic development. Regional innovation networks transform technology into competitiveness of firms and thus contribute to economic development. Intangible assets, such as social capital, decide how effective regional innovation networks function. Differences in regional social capital thus help explain regional differences in economic development. Regional social capital originates from the embeddedness of firms in regional webs of social relations. The norms, values and customs of these networks facilitate collaboration for mutual benefit. As innovation is increasingly a network effort, embeddedness and social capital also help explain how and why networks of innovating companies are successful, as the case study of the Stimulus Cluster Scheme shows.     

The politics of redistributive social insurance

This paper analyses the political support for a social insurance that includes elements of redistribution when there exists an imperfect private insurance alternative. Individuals differ both in their income and risk. The social insurance is compulsory and charges an income-related contribution with pooling of risks. The private insurance is voluntary and charges a contribution based on individual risks. However due to the adverse selection problem, private insurance companies provide only partial insurance. Adopting a non-expected utility model, we show that there is a general majority support for social insurance and that this support is increasing with risk aversion. We also show that a mixed insurance is politically impossible, regardless of the degree of redistribution of social insurance and the joint distribution of risk and income in the population. Lastly, we analyse how the political support for social insurance is affected by any change in its redistributive component and the possibility of using genetic tests.     

社会资本外部性的经济分析——以信任关系为例

以往理论研究与经验研究均指出社会资本具有正面的效应,但对这种效应是怎样取得的并无共识.我们尝试建立一个不完全信息动态博弈模型,说明社会资本-信任如何产生正的外部性,亦即产生超出个体理性计算之外的利益.我们的分析得出这样的结论,在一个多人互动的环境中,能否达到彼此合作或彼此信任,虽然会受到欺骗者所遭到的惩罚与欺骗利益多少的影响,但主要受到所处环境中具有社会资本者人数比例的影响.因此,可以说社会资本具有正的网络外部性,信任者人数越多,信任者所享受到的利益越大.     

社会互动与投资选择

个体的投资选择是否受到社会互动的影响?社会互动的作用机制是什么?采用2005年中国12城市投资者行为调查数据,本文发现,总体而言,社会互动推动了个体当前和未来期望对银行存款、外汇、股票、债券、期货、基金、借出、做生意、保险金、收藏品、房地产、理财产品、彩票等投资项目的参与。社会互动的积极作用主要是通过个体遵循参考群体成员的投资选择所体现的社会规范来实现的。此外,内生互动带来的感受交流和信息获得分别推动了个体当前对保险金和未来期望对债券的投资,而情景互动降低了个体未来参与股市的期望。     

创新驿站技术成果的社会推介

源于欧盟的创新驿站是一种将有技术需求和能提供技术的机构集中在一起,帮助它们找到创新解决方案的技术转移中介服务组织,是一个技术、资金和市场等信息的集散中心。创新驿站可充分利用信息资源优势,以网络、会议和其它多种形式的辅助媒介,向技术信息需求量最大的中小型企业进行技术成果推介。     

社会创业导向、跨界搜索与社会企业绩效：市场环境的调节作用

作为社会企业重要战略选择,社会创业导向能够促进跨界搜索以获取灵感和动力,从而推动社会企业双元绩效提升。因此,基于组织搜索理论,遵循“态度—行为—结果”研究范式,将市场环境引入社会企业创业导向、跨界搜索与社会企业双元绩效关系模型,基于问卷数据验证社会创业导向对社会企业双元绩效的作用机制及外部影响。结果表明：①社会创业导向对社会企业经济和社会绩效具有积极影响;②跨界搜索在社会创业导向与社会企业经济和社会绩效间起部分中介作用;③市场环境作为关键外部环境因素,正向调节社会创业导向与跨界搜索的关系以及跨界搜索与社会企业经济绩效的关系,负向调节跨界搜索与社会企业社会绩效的关系。因此,整个模型能够回答社会创业导向如何推动社会企业双元绩效增长问题。此外,市场环境的技术动态性和需求不确定性促使市场逻辑在社会企业跨界搜索行为中占据主导地位,因而社会企业需要高度重视自身使命和价值共创,促进经济效益和社会价值实现。     

Transparency for governance: The mechanisms and effectiveness of disclosure-based and education-based transparency policies

When transparency is used as a tool for global environmental governance - i.e., to induce targeted actors to reduce environmentally-harmful behaviors, it can operate via disclosure or education. Disclosure-based policies improve the information the public has about targeted actors' behaviors while education-based policies improve the information targeted actors have about their own behaviors, whether that is information about consequences, alternatives, or social norms. Various social and political forces shape whether and what type of transparency policies are adopted. Disclosure-based and education-based transparency policies are effective under different conditions and operate through different mechanisms. Both often operate through mechanisms that reflect an instrumental logic of consequences but also can and do operate through mechanisms that reflect a normative logic of appropriateness, by increasing the legitimacy accorded to global environmental norms and the social accountability targeted actors feel regarding their behaviors. Understanding the differences in the mechanisms by which disclosure-based and education-based transparency policies operate suggests that both scholars and practitioners should use caution in understanding why, and predicting when, such policies will work.     

正式制度与非正式制度如何驱动社会创业——基于效率驱动型国家的QCA研究

社会创业已成为解决社会问题的重要手段,然而对于如何驱动社会创业尚未有定论。以23个效率驱动型国家为研究样本,整合正式制度与非正式制度的5个前因条件,应用QCA方法,探讨了影响国家社会创业活跃度的多重并发因素与复杂因果机制。研究发现：①高社会创业活跃度的驱动机制分为两条路径,即政策-规范-价值观型和规范-价值观-教育型。第一条路径是正式制度与非正式制度要素间的联动匹配,第二条路径是非正式制度要素间的联动匹配;②非正式制度在影响人们社会创业选择时具有重要作用,影响程度甚至超过了正式制度;③政府政策与创业教育之间具有替代作用,即当社会规范与文化价值观水平较高时,只要拥有完善的政府政策,或者良好的创业教育,就能驱动形成较高的社会创业活跃度;④非高社会创业活跃度的驱动机制分为4条路径,且与高社会创业活跃度的驱动路径存在非对称性关系。     

The Erosion and Sustainability of Norms and Morale

I examine why the performance of an organization is often subject to gradual erosion. I assume that players are motivated partly by psychological factors, norms and morale, and that they are willing to exert extra efforts if others do so. I show that repeated random shocks induce the erosion of the extra efforts supported by norms and morale, but they do not completely decay; in the long run a certain range of efforts are sustainable. Hence different organizations typically enjoy diverse norms and morale, which persist for a long time, in the vicinity of the equilibrium determined by material incentives.     

危机时刻的社会保障支出

文章研究了社会保障支出与金融危机之间的关系,回答了两个问题:第一个问题是:在金融危机发生后,社会保障支出的发展趋势如何?第二个问题是:哪些原因可以解释这些变化?文章认为,社会保障制度往往诞生于危机之际。此外,一般地讲,社会保障支出在危机期间会增加;但是各国情况不同,发达国家显示出反周期支出的特点。文章支持这样一个观点,即危机可以被当作改善和加强社会保障的机会,而在这样的过程中,各国不仅可以缓解危机最不利的影响,而且能制定比较好的社会政策,改进长期危机的防范应对。     

Applications of a generalized metric in the analysis of iterated function systems

Summary. Iterated function systems make up an interesting class of stochastic processes which are useful for many types of stochastic modeling. In this paper we review and slightly generalize a contractivity condition guaranteeing uniqueness of invariant measures. Also, we examine how the invariant measure, and thus also the asymptotic behavior, of such a process is affected by perturbations of the defining functions and probabilities.Received: 15 September 2002, Revised: 29 October 2002, JEL Classification Numbers: C62, O41.I would like to thank Professor Göran Högnäs for his support. I am also greatly indebted to the Finnish Graduate School in Stochastics for my financial support and I would like to thank the anonymous referee for the helpful comments.     

A Convoluted Path

In the first part of this paper, I described the events that led me from psychology into economics, and how the Association for Social Economics provided the ideal setting for someone attracted to economics but who disagreed with the normative conclusions of the mainstream. In the second part, I suggest three areas that will be of increasing importance in the near future—addictive behaviors, rising inequality, and global warming—each of which social economists are particularly well-suited to tackle.     

Fair social orderings

In a model of private good allocation, we construct social orderings which depend only on ordinal non-comparable information about individual preferences. In order to avoid Arrovian-type impossibilities, we let those social preferences take account of the shape of individual indifference curves. This allows us to introduce equity and cross-economy robustness properties, inspired by the theory of fair allocation. Combining such properties, we characterize two families of fair social orderings. We thank E. Maskin, A. Sen, W. Thomson, B. Tungodden and an anonymous referee for comments, and seminar participants at the Indian Statistical Institute-Delhi, the Norwegian School of Economics (Bergen), the University of Caen, the University of Rochester, and the University of Cergy-Pontoise. Financial Support from European TMR Network Living Standards, Inequality and Taxation Contract ERBFMXCT 980248 is gratefully acknowledged.