Economists on Darwin's theory of social evolution and human behaviour

Abstract

This article analyses Darwin's image among economists with a specific focus on his theory of social evolution as presented in the Descent of Man (1871). We propose an analysis of the way and context in which economists refer to Darwin, mention his name and quote his writings. It then appears that Darwin is most of the time viewed as a biologist only, who never developed his own theory of social evolution. He is thus quoted as a biologist who either borrowed concepts from economists who developed a theory of social evolution, or laid the basis for biological theory of social evolution developed by others, Spencer, in particular. It is only recently that eventually the twofold dimensions—biological and social—of Darwin's general theory of evolution are considered together by bioeconomists.     

关于奥地利学派制度变迁理论方法论的初步分析

奥地利学派的制度变迁理论其方法论主要有三大"基石"构成,即,主观主义、方法论个人主义、演进理性主义。它对于其学派的制度变迁理论的渲化具有特殊意义。     

From Social Theory to Explaining Sickonomics: A Response to Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine

This response shows that, in their reply to my critique of their work, Ben Fine and Dimitris Milonakis generally maintain the impression that there is a single, widely accepted definition of methodological individualism, but they do not identify it. They assert that social structures (undefined but seemingly specified to exclude law and institutions) have ‘analytical priority’ and logically (but tacitly) imply that individuals should have no part in the analysis of social or economic phenomena. They mischaracterise Hodgson's (2011) position on Marshall by quoting just one part-sentence out of context. Fine, Milonakis and Hodgson agree that the intellectual roots of the predominance of technique over substance in modern economics can partly be traced to the 1870–1900 period, but disagree on what they are.     

习俗元制度的演化机制:一个演化经济学的视角

演化经济学为我们分析制度演化提供了新的视角,演化经济学关于制度的演化机制主要有遗传机制(复制机制)、变异机制(新奇创生机制)、选择机制和适应性学习机制等.习俗就是最基本的元制度之一,作为一种基本的元制度,是市场经济运行的基础,从演化经济学的视角来看,习俗元制度的演化机制至少有:遗传机制(复制机制)、变异机制(新奇创生机制)、选择机制和适用性学习机制.     

环境管制与企业竞争力的演化经济学解释--对传统观点与修正学派的批判

环境管制与企业竞争力的关系近年来成为各界争论的焦点。传统观点认为环境管制降低企业竞争力，修正学派则认为环境管制有利于企业创新，使企业受益于“创新补偿”和“先动优势”，从而有利于企业竞争力。本文从演化经济学的有限理性、多样化、随机因素和时间等基本假设出发，认为以组织能力为核心的动态演化观点有利于更好地理解和分析环境管制与企业竞争力的关系。     

Interrogating Sickonomics,from Diagnosis to Cure: A Response to Hodgson

Hodgson's review of our books argues against us that marginalism neither adopted methodological individualism nor excluded the social from economics. Thus, he finds a partial solution to sickonomics in abandoning the term methodological individualism and using both structures and individuals as analytical starting point(s), revisiting Marshallian marginalism dressed up in socio-institutional clothing. He also denies any relationship between the current malaise in economics and the marginal revolution, as we claim, focusing exclusively on institutional developments since the Second World War. We show Hodgson is either partial or wrong on all of these counts. Firstly, his alternative to methodological individualism is untenable. Secondly, institutions, although implicitly present in Marshallian and Walrasian economics, play no substantive analytical role and as such are superfluous. Finally, although institutional factors help explain the sickness of modern economics (in addition to socioeconomic, ideological, political, and intellectual factors), the intellectual roots of this decay lie in the conceptual framework established around the marginal revolution.     

The Narrow and Broad Approaches to Evolutionary Modeling in Economics

Some models in evolutionary economics rely on direct analogies to genetic evolution, assuming a population of firms with routines, technologies, and strategies on which forces of diversity generation and selection act. This narrow conception can build upon previous findings from evolutionary biology. Broader concepts of evolution allow many or just one adaptive entity, instead of necessarily requiring a population. Thus, an institution or a society can also be understood as an evolutionary entity. Both the narrow and broad approaches have been extensively used in the literature, albeit in different literature traditions. I provide an overview of the conception and development of both approaches to evolutionary modeling, and argue that a generalization is needed to realize the full potential of evolutionary modeling.     

Politician control, agency problems and ownership reform

Using data from a recent national survey on the ownership reform of state‐owned enterprises in China, we study the effects of reducing politician control and agency problems on a number of reform outcomes. Taking into account the endogenous nature of the reform, we find that these outcome measures of the reform's success are positively affected by the lessening of politician control through increasing the firm's flexibility in labour deployment and by the mitigation of agency costs through the introduction of more effective corporate governance mechanisms such as one‐share one‐vote and shareholding‐based board structure composition. Ownership structure also matters: relative to shareholding by the state, foreign ownership has a positive effect on reform outcomes; individual (mostly employee) shareholding has a negative or insignificant effect. Somewhat surprisingly, operating autonomy (excluding labour deployment flexibility) has a negative effect on firm performance, suggesting serious agency problems in the reformed enterprises.     

演化经济学的方法和主题特征及其演变——一种以"另类教规理论"为例的解释

以赖纳特和张夏准等人为代表的另类教规理论是演化经济学的新兴流派之一,文章在对演化经济学的历史比较与回溯、异质性与分类、时空特定性、能动性与结构等方法与主题特征进行阐述的同时,以另类教规理论为样本,对其主要观点、政策主张和分析方法进行剖析,以探讨演化经济学的发展。     

代理成本与审计师选择--基于中国IPO公司的研究

西方大量研究表明,公司的代理冲突程度越高,选择大事务所进行审计的动力就越强。文章在对179家IPO公司研究后发现,建立在英美市场经济条件下的代理理论对我国审计师选择行为的解释力并不充分。在公司规模、成长性、财务杠杆、管理层持股比例、董事会独立性等反映公司代理冲突的变量中,仅公司规模与是否选择大事务所进行审计有显著正向关系,管理层持股与是否选择大事务所审计则呈倒U形关系,没有发现成长性、财务杠杆与审计师选择存在显著关系的证据。     

Stock market-driven investment: new evidence on information,financing and agency effects

This study provides a theoretical model and empirical analysis to jointly examine the information, financing and agency effects, the three channels through which the stock market can actively influence corporate investment decisions and firm performance. First, stock market affects corporate investments, and such impact varies with different market valuation measures, types of investments and firm characteristics. Second, stock market valuation affects investments through the channel of corporate financing, supporting the financing hypothesis. Third, stock market-driven investments have differential impacts on the future operating performance of firms. Investments driven by market valuation of firm-specific information have a positive effect on future performance. In contrast, investments driven by market-wide sentiment have a negative effect on future performance. Fourth, consistent with the information hypothesis, market-driven investments are value-enhancing for firms with better external monitoring by analysts and institutional investors. Lastly, consistent with the agency hypothesis, market-driven investments are value-destroying when firms lack external monitoring, proper managerial incentives and independent board of directors.     

The economic debate on power: a Marxist critique

In the economic debate on power, seemingly opposite positions have been presented. Contractualists have claimed that power relations do not exist in capitalism, and radicals have maintained that they are ubiquitous. In the middle, transaction costs and property rights economists have argued that power relations exist only within the firm. The underlying conception, however, is the same: power is an interpersonal relation caused by imperfections in the decision-making context and is incompatible with Walrasian competition. The difference among these theories involves their viewpoints on the concrete spread of imperfections in reality. The thesis of this paper is that this narrow conception of power is a consequence of neoclassical methodology. Following Marx, I analyze power as a social relation, and I discuss three problematic aspects of the neoclassical conception: its individualistic methodology, the assumption of universal rather than historical categories, and an ontology that conflates production and circulation.     

A theory of classification and evolution of technologies within a Generalised Darwinism

This paper here proposes a theory of classification and evolution of technology based on taxonomic characteristic of interaction between technologies that is an under-studied field of research in economics of technical change and management of technology. The proposed classification of technologies, in a broad analogy with evolutionary ecology of parasites, within a theoretical framework of Generalised Darwinism, is: (1) parasitic technologies, (2) commensal technologies, (3) mutualistic technologies, (4) symbiotic technologies. This theory here suggests the property of mutual benefaction from interaction between different technologies and the theorem of not independence of any technology to explain and predict characteristics and evolutionary pathways of technologies over time. Overall, then, this study may be useful for bringing a new perspective in economics of innovation to categorise and analyse the interaction between technologies that can be a ground work for development of more sophisticated concepts to explain and predict the evolution of technology and generalise aspects of technological change in human society.     

Family ownership,altruism and agency costs in Australian small- and medium-sized enterprises

Given the continuing uncertainty about whether family firms enjoy lower agency costs, this article hypothesizes that a combination of the effects of family ownership, altruism and self-control is instead at play. To begin with, family ownership can indeed reduce agency costs through better aligning the interests of owners and managers. This is a ‘determining’ effect in that it independently mitigates one source of agency problems. However, altruism combined with self-control problems arising from the highly concentrated ownership often found in family firms can also increase agency costs. This is an ‘embedding’ effect as it is rooted in the personal relationships within the family firm. Using the Business Longitudinal Database compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), we find that for larger SMEs (those with 20–200 employees), the gains in lower agency costs arising from family ownership are almost completely offset by the losses from altruism and the lack of self-control.     

Toward a 0th Law of Thermodynamics: Order-Creation Complexity Dynamics from Physics and Biology to Bioeconomics

The evolutionary economics part of bioeconomics has its origins in attempts to justify why only rational firms survive, or to introduce dynamics into economic orthodoxy. To the extent that these views persist, this aspect of bioeconomics appears outdated. A more recent view is that the most significant dynamics in bio- and econospheres are not variances around equilibria. Instead order is now seen to be due to the interactions of autonomous, heterogeneous agents energized by contextually imposed tensions induced by energy differentials. While Darwinian selection is still an important process at the tail end of the order-creation process, other natural forces surrounding the biosphere are seen as causing the more significant changes in biological entities over the millennia. This view is set forth within the framework of thermodynamics. It also calls for a change away from the definition of science rooted in the equilibrium mathematics of Newton's orbital mechanics. This new message from natural science is about rapid-fire dynamics calling for a fast-motion science of order-creation before the equilibria of the 1^st Law of Thermodynamics take hold. The 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics is seen to dominate the 1^st Law as the root cause of change. The possibility of a 0^th law – of agents' self-organization toward order creation – is considered. Key works by Prigogine, Ashby, Lorenz, Haken, Kelso et al., Salthe, Gell-Mann, Mainzer, Omnès, and Kauffman are reviewed. Nine premises – tracing the path toward an emerging 0^th law – are discussed, with some variance also evident. The view of Kelso et al. most easily leads to a one-sentence statement of a possible 0^th law of order creation that could offer something of value to bioeconomists.     

Enterprise reform in China: agency problems and political control

The past reforms of state-owned enterprises in China delegated many effective control rights to managers while maintaining ultimate control rights for the Party and government. The result is that either the agency costs are high because managers lack accountability or the political costs are high because the government causes political interference. Reform of state-owned enterprises in China should aim at reducing both political and agency costs, which can be done through depoliticization, effective corporate governance, and deserialization. In particular, China needs an ownership transformation with a combination of privatization, denationalization, and pluralization; a state assets management system to limit political influence from the government; and corporatization to establish effective corporate governance which may take a variety of forms.     

J.A. Schumpeter and T.B. Veblen on economic evolution: the dichotomy between statics and dynamics

At present, the discussion on the dichotomy between statics and dynamics is resolved by concentrating on its mathematical meaning. Yet, a simple formalisation masks the underlying methodological discussion. Overcoming this limitation, the paper discusses Schumpeter's and Veblen's viewpoint on dynamic economic systems as systems generating change from within. It contributes to an understanding on their ideas of how economics could become an evolutionary science and on their contributions to elaborate an evolutionary economics. It confronts Schumpeter's with Veblen's perspective on evolutionary economics and provides insight into their evolutionary economic theorising by discussing their ideas on the evolution of capitalism.     

Research on equity adjustment,agency costs and commercial bank performance: experimental evidence from China

This article studies the impact of options to adjust the performance of commercial banks from agency costs. In the shareholding structure of the adjustment process, considering changes in agency costs, only in agency costs no more than the commercial banks when new results, the company will have to adjust agent the cost of power stealth measure more just by reflecting the size of the incremental results. In addition, equity restructuring costs are the basis of agency governance and ownership structure has an important impact on agency costs. Through a few selected China 14 listed commercial banks’ 2007–2012 data, we show that the impact of performance of commercial banks on the proportion of the company’s largest shareholders is generally more significant; however, the impact of equity restriction on commercial banks was not as significant, as seen from the application of balanced panel data model analysis and the test results. However, the agency costs of commercial bank performance were significant also in a general state, indicating that equity adjustment activities of commercial banks’ cost perspective agency under the commercial bank performance significant changes are not large.