IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/mateco/v84y2019icp150-165.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Elimination of non-individualistic preferences in large population aggregative games

Author

Listed:
  • Lahkar, Ratul

Abstract

We study evolution of preferences in large population aggregative games. In such games, all agents in society interact with each other. The material payoff or fitness of agents is entirely individualistic. Subjective payoffs, which represent preferences, depend upon a non-individualistic component which is adjusted through a type-dependent preference parameter. Using the indirect evolutionary approach, we show that the individualistic type enjoys fitness dominance under any type distribution in such games. Hence, under a class of evolutionary dynamics that satisfy monotone percentage growth, all non-individualistic types are eliminated. We apply this analysis to two classes of non-individualistic preferences-altruistic and Kantian. Altruistic preferences put a positive weight on the externality imposed on society while Kantian preferences incorporate the Kantian categorical imperative. In two important economic models, the tragedy of the commons and the public goods game, we show that both these classes of preferences are eliminated.

Suggested Citation

  • Lahkar, Ratul, 2019. "Elimination of non-individualistic preferences in large population aggregative games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 150-165.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:84:y:2019:i:c:p:150-165
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2019.07.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406819300862
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmateco.2019.07.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Perkins, S. & Leslie, D.S., 2014. "Stochastic fictitious play with continuous action sets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 179-213.
    2. William H. Sandholm, 2001. "Preference Evolution, Two-Speed Dynamics, and Rapid Social Change," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(3), pages 637-679, July.
    3. William H. Sandholm, 2002. "Evolutionary Implementation and Congestion Pricing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(3), pages 667-689.
    4. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2019. "Evolutionary Models of Preference Formation," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 329-354, August.
    5. Ok, Efe A. & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2001. "On the Evolution of Individualistic Preferences: An Incomplete Information Scenario," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 231-254, April.
    6. Ingela Alger, 2010. "Public Goods Games, Altruism, and Evolution," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(4), pages 789-813, August.
    7. Cheung, Man-Wah, 2014. "Pairwise comparison dynamics for games with continuous strategy space," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 344-375.
    8. Efe A. Ok & Levent KoÚkesen, 2000. "Negatively interdependent preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 17(3), pages 533-558.
    9. Samuelson, Larry & Zhang, Jianbo, 1992. "Evolutionary stability in asymmetric games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 363-391, August.
    10. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2013. "Homo Moralis—Preference Evolution Under Incomplete Information and Assortative Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2269-2302, November.
    11. Ingela Alger, 2010. "Corrigendum: Public Goods Games, Altruism, and Evolution," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(6), pages 1135-1135, December.
    12. Cheung, Man-Wah & Lahkar, Ratul, 2018. "Nonatomic potential games: the continuous strategy case," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 341-362.
    13. Sethi, Rajiv & Somanathan, E., 2001. "Preference Evolution and Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 273-297, April.
    14. Friedman, Daniel, 1991. "Evolutionary Games in Economics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 637-666, May.
    15. Lahkar, Ratul & Mukherjee, Saptarshi, 2019. "Evolutionary implementation in a public goods game," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 423-460.
    16. Ely, Jeffrey C. & Yilankaya, Okan, 2001. "Nash Equilibrium and the Evolution of Preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 255-272, April.
    17. Eddie Dekel & Jeffrey C. Ely & Okan Yilankaya, 2007. "Evolution of Preferences -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 685-704.
    18. Nachbar, J H, 1990. ""Evolutionary" Selection Dynamics in Games: Convergence and Limit Properties," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 19(1), pages 59-89.
    19. Kockesen, Levent & Ok, Efe A. & Sethi, Rajiv, 2000. "The Strategic Advantage of Negatively Interdependent Preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 274-299, June.
    20. Bester, Helmut & Guth, Werner, 1998. "Is altruism evolutionarily stable?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 193-209, February.
    21. Kockesen, Levent & Ok, Efe A. & Sethi, Rajiv, 2000. "Evolution of Interdependent Preferences in Aggregative Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 303-310, May.
    22. Possajennikov, Alex, 2000. "On the evolutionary stability of altruistic and spiteful preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 125-129, May.
    23. Sandholm, William H., 2001. "Potential Games with Continuous Player Sets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 81-108, March.
    24. Alger, Ingela & Weibull, Jörgen W., 2016. "Evolution and Kantian morality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 56-67.
    25. Bolle, Friedel, 2000. "Is altruism evolutionarily stable? And envy and malevolence?: Remarks on Bester and Guth," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 131-133, May.
    26. Aviad Heifetz & Chris Shannon & Yossi Spiegel, 2007. "The Dynamic Evolution of Preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 32(2), pages 251-286, August.
    27. Ratul Lahkar, 2017. "Large Population Aggregative Potential Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 443-467, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sarvesh Bandhu & Ratul Lahkar, 2022. "A Large Population Approach to Implementing Efficiency with Minimum Inequality," Working Papers 76, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    2. Sarvesh Bandhu & Ratul Lahkar, 2021. "Implementation in Large Population Games with Multiple Equilibria," Working Papers 62, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    3. Sarvesh Bandhu & Ratul Lahkar, 2023. "Evolutionary robustness of dominant strategy implementation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(2), pages 685-721, August.
    4. Lahkar, Ratul & Mukherjee, Sayan & Roy, Souvik, 2023. "The logit dynamic in supermodular games with a continuum of strategies: A deterministic approximation approach," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 133-160.
    5. Ratul Lahkar & Saptarshi Mukherjee, 2022. "Optimal Large Population Tullock Contests," Working Papers 82, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    6. Bandhu, Sarvesh & Lahkar, Ratul, 2023. "Survival of altruistic preferences in a large population public goods game," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    7. Eichner, Thomas & Pethig, Rüdiger, 2024. "International environmental agreements when countries behave morally," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    8. Luis C. Corchón, 2021. "Aggregative games," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 49-71, March.
    9. Ratul Lahkar & Rezina Sultana, 2023. "Rent dissipation in large population Tullock contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 197(1), pages 253-282, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alger, Ingela & Weibull, Jörgen W., 2016. "Evolution and Kantian morality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 56-67.
    2. Jiabin Wu, 2020. "Labelling, homophily and preference evolution," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 49(1), pages 1-22, March.
    3. Norman, Thomas W.L., 2012. "Equilibrium selection and the dynamic evolution of preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 311-320.
    4. Tóbiás, Áron, 2023. "Rational Altruism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 50-80.
    5. Ingela Alger & Laurent Lehmann, 2023. "Evolution of Semi-Kantian Preferences in Two-Player Assortative Interactions with Complete and Incomplete Information and Plasticity," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 1288-1319, December.
    6. Alger, Ingela & Lehmann, Laurent & Weibull, Jörgen W., 2018. "Evolution of preferences in group-structured populations: genes, guns, and culture," IAST Working Papers 18-73, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), revised Oct 2019.
    7. Carrasco, Jose A. & Harrison, Rodrigo & Villena, Mauricio G., 2022. "Strategic reciprocity and preference formation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 368-381.
    8. Carrasco, José A. & Harrison, Rodrigo & Villena, Mauricio, 2018. "Interdependent preferences and endogenous reciprocity," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 68-75.
    9. Heifetz, Aviad & Shannon, Chris & Spiegel, Yossi, 2007. "What to maximize if you must," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 31-57, March.
    10. Heller, Yuval & Mohlin, Erik, 2019. "Coevolution of deception and preferences: Darwin and Nash meet Machiavelli," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 223-247.
    11. Alger, Ingela & Weibull, Jörgen W., 2014. "Evolution leads to Kantian morality," TSE Working Papers 14-504, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Jun 2015.
    12. Jonathan Newton, 2018. "Evolutionary Game Theory: A Renaissance," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-67, May.
    13. Konrad, Kai A. & Morath, Florian, 2016. "Bargaining with incomplete information: Evolutionary stability in finite populations," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 118-131.
    14. Aviad Heifetz & Chris Shannon & Yossi Spiegel, 2007. "The Dynamic Evolution of Preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 32(2), pages 251-286, August.
    15. Hideaki Goto, 2017. "How does socio-economic environment influence the distribution of altruism?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 82(1), pages 93-116, January.
    16. Sarvesh Bandhu & Ratul Lahkar, 2023. "Evolutionary robustness of dominant strategy implementation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(2), pages 685-721, August.
    17. Thomas Norman, 2004. "Dynamically Stable Preferences," Economics Series Working Papers 207, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Wu, Jiabin, 2018. "The interplay of cultural intolerance and action-assortativity for the emergence of cooperation and homophily," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1-18.
    19. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2013. "Homo Moralis—Preference Evolution Under Incomplete Information and Assortative Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2269-2302, November.
    20. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2019. "Evolutionary Models of Preference Formation," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 329-354, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:84:y:2019:i:c:p:150-165. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jmateco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.