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Is population growth conducive to the sustainability of cooperation?

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  • Stark, Oded
  • Jakubek, Marcin

Abstract

This paper asks whether population growth is conducive to the sustainability of cooperation. A simple model is developed in which farmers who live around a circular lake engage in trade with their adjacent neighbors. The payoffs from this activity are governed by a prisoner's dilemma “rule of engagement.” Every farmer has one son when the population is not growing, or two sons when it is growing. In the former case, the son takes over the farm when his father dies. In the latter case, one son stays on his father's farm, whereas the other son settles around another lake, along with the “other” sons of the other farmers. During his childhood, each son observes the strategies and the payoffs of his father and of the trading partners of his father, and imitates the most successful strategy when starting farming on his own. Then mutant defectors are introduced into an all-cooperator community. The defector strategy may spread. A comparison is drawn between the impact in terms of the sustainability of cooperation of the appearance of the mutants in a population that is not growing, and in one that is growing. It is shown that the ex-ante probability of sustaining the cooperation strategy is higher for a community that is growing than for a stagnant community.

Suggested Citation

  • Stark, Oded & Jakubek, Marcin, 2011. "Is population growth conducive to the sustainability of cooperation?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 443-451.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:9:y:2011:i:4:p:443-451
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2011.06.003
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Stark, Oded, 1993. "How Altruism Can Prevail in an Evolutionary Environment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 149-155, May.
    2. Oded Stark & Doris Behrens & Yong Wang, 2009. "On the evolutionary edge of migration as an assortative mating device," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 95-109, February.
    3. Oded Stark & You Wang, 2004. "On the evolutionary edge of altruism: a game-theoretic proof of Hamilton’s rule for a simple case of siblings," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 37-42, January.
    4. Timothy G. Conley & Christopher R. Udry, 2010. "Learning about a New Technology: Pineapple in Ghana," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 35-69, March.
    5. Oded Stark & Doris Behrens, 2011. "In search of an evolutionary edge: trading with a few, more, or many," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 21(5), pages 721-736, December.
    6. Oded Stark & Doris Behrens, 2010. "An evolutionary edge of knowing less (or: On the ‘curse’ of global information)," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 77-94, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Population growth; Imitation; Sustainability of cooperation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J19 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Other
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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