Evolution of harvesting strategies: replicator and resource dynamics

Abstract. Economic theories of managing renewable resources, such as fisheries and forestry, traditionally assume that individual harvesters are perfectly rational and thus able to compute the harvesting strategy that maximizes their discounted profits. The current paper presents an alternative approach based on bounded rationality and evolutionary mechanisms. It is assumed that individual harvesters face a choice between two harvesting strategies. The evolution of the distribution of strategies in the population is modeled through a replicator dynamics equation. The latter captures the idea that strategies yielding above average profits are demanded more than strategies yielding below average profits, so that the first type ends up accounting for a larger part in the population. From a mathematical perspective, the combination of resource and evolutionary processes leads to complex dynamics. The paper presents the existence and stability conditions for each steady-state of the system and analyzes dynamic paths to the equilibrium. In addition, effects of changes in prices are analyzed. A main result of the paper is that under certain conditions both strategies can survive in the long-run. Correspondence to: J. Noailly     

Retrospective questions: data quality,task difficulty,and the use of a checklist

Data from a national panel study with waves in 1987 and 1991 (N=1257), present evidence of the low accuracy of responses to retrospective questions, concerning both attitudes and behaviour. Applying a split ballot design, it is investigated whether using a checklist improves the response accuracy for a retrospective question about one single event: how respondents (N=363) did obtain the job they had four years ago. Furthermore interaction effects of ‘task difficulty’ are examined. The response accuracy indeed increases by using a checklist; however, this increase is not statistically significant. The expected increase of the checklist effect with higher ‘task difficulty’ appears for longer recall intervals, but not for more frequent changes of jobs. It turned out that for male respondents all the predicted effects are indeed clearly present. But for female respondents the checklist appeared to have no effect, irrespective of the task difficulty. A tentative explanation for this unexpected gender effect is suggested by pointing at indications that the male and female respondents differed in the way they obtained their job.     

Towards a kernel theory of external knowledge integration for high-tech firms: Exploring a failed theory test

Designing information systems (ISs) requires a thorough understanding of the organizational knowledge processes in which these systems are used. Although much is known about internal organizational knowledge processes, the understanding of external knowledge processes is less developed. Hence, this paper reflects an attempt to operationalize and test a model of the process of external knowledge integration (EKI), consisting of an identification, acquisition, and utilization stage. We utilize high-technology based firms from a variety of high-tech categories including nanotechnology based firms since these firms have critical knowledge integration needs. The results of an international survey, with responses of 317 high-tech companies, suggest that not these three EKI-stages, but four organizational effectiveness functions (goal attainment, pattern maintenance, adaptation, and integration) account for most variation in responses. These findings seem to imply that ISs that are to support the EKI-process should be designed according to organizational effectiveness functions rather than to EKI-stages. It is proposed that each organizational effectiveness function imposes different requirements on ISs because users interact differently with IS in each function.     

Evolutionary stability and lexicographic preferences

We explore the interaction between evolutionary stability and lexicographic preferences. To do so, we define a limit Nash equilibrium for a lexicographic game as the limit of Nash equilibria of nearby games with continuous preferences. Nash equilibria of lexicographic games are limit Nash equilibria, but not conversely. Modified evolutionarily stable strategies (Binmore and Samuelson, 1992. J. Econ. Theory 57, 278–305) are limit Nash equilibria. Modified evolutionary stability differs from “lexicographic evolutionarily stability” (defined by extending the common characterization of evolutionary stability to lexicographic preferences) in the order in which limits in the payoff space and the space of invasion barriers are taken.     

Recovering Hicksian Consumer Surplus within a Collective Model: Hausman's Method for the Household

The purpose of this paper is to describe the implications of the collective model of household behavior for the methods used to estimate the economic value of non-marketed environmental resources. After demonstrating how the separability restrictions inherent in the collective model allow individual preference and household income allocation choices to be distinguished, the paper demonstrates how the framework can be used to recover Hicksian consumer surplus. An algebraic example is used to illustrate how the framework can be used in valuing environmental resources.     

Banks’ non-traditional activities under regulatory changes: impact on risk,performance and capital adequacy

Using the big six Canadian chartered banks quarterly financial statements and daily stock market data from 1982 to 2018, we examine the impact of non-interest income on Canadian banks’ risk, performance and capital under the different major regulatory changes made to the Bank Act of Canada. Our results show that Canadian banks’ expansion into non-traditional activities had slightly decreased their risks and significantly improved their performance benefitting from income diversification. Moreover, while adhering to capital adequacy regulation, reshuffling banks’ portfolio towards non-traditional activities did not reduce Canadian banks’ capital ratio. In spite of the re-regulation towards universal banking against ring-fencing, this feature buttresses the effectiveness of capital adequacy regulation in Canada in linking banks capital allocation with their risk taking.     

Credible assignments in coordination games

This paper uses the experimental method to examine an arbiter's ability to determine the outcome of two-person coordination games. All of the arbiter's assignments in the experiments were strict equilibrium points, but some assignments violated payoff-dominance or symmetry. An assignment that corresponds to the game's outcome is a credible assignment. The experiments test the hypothesis that an assignment to a strict equilibrium is a credible assignment. Our subjects did not find the individual rationality and mutual consistency of an equilibrium assignment to be sufficient reason for implementing the assignment when doing so conflicts with payoff-dominance or symmetry.     

Determinants of internal and external R&D: Some Dutch evidence

Summary Innovating firms can choose to engage in either internal or external R&D, or in both. In the current study, we shall examine internal and external R&D separately to determine empirically the market structure characteristics explaining the external R&D share and the differences in market structure determinants between internal and external R&D. Our results indicate that a government policy that aims at stimulating technological progress by offering external research facilities is particularly interesting for smaller, capital-intensive firms operating in less concentrated markets.We would like to thank Alfred Kleinknecht for providing the R&D data and Kees Bakker and Yvonne Prince for providing the market structure data. We thank Alfred Kleinknecht, Bart Nooteboom and an anonymous referee for their comments and suggestions We acknowledge a research grant from the Stichting KMO Fonds.     

Investments,wages, prices and demand for labour

Summary Since 1971 the employment in the Netherlands has continuously decreased. Apart from the decrease caused by the recent depression, particularly in the year 1975, the decrease is a more pronounced continuation of a tendency which is manifest already in a number of years before. In this paper an attempt is made to explain the structural development of employment by means of a clay-clay vintage model. It appears that the unfavourable development of employment is connected with the accelerated growth of real labour costs in the past decade.This article is a translation of a revised and somewhat extended version of a paper published earlier in Dutch: H. den Hartog and H. S. Tjan,Investeringen, lonen, prijzen en arbeidsplaatsen, Central Planning Bureau, Occasional Paper, 1974/2, The Hague, 1974. This revised version of the clay-clay vintage model was introduced into a much more complete model of the economy of the Netherlands in: H. den Hartog, Th. C. M. J. van de Klundert and H. S. Tjan, De structurele ontwikkeling van de werkgelegenheid in macro-economisch perspectief, inWerkloosheid, Preadviezen van de Vereniging voor de Staathuishoudkunde, The Hague, 1975.