A potential limit on competition

The paper analyzes the ambiguous interplay of some human cognitive dispositions and competitive forces: (a) people have a want for a certain amount of novelty—potentially induced by competition-driven innovation—but emotionally resist an excessive degree of novel mental experiences; and (b) competition-driven change introduces challenges to agents that may result in fluid life states when skills and cognitive resources enable an individual to meet these challenges or in strained life states if this is not the case. As a result, some affective constraints to economic development and potential implications for economic theory development and policy making are identified.