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An evolutionary edge of knowing less (or: On the ‘curse’ of global information)

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  • Oded Stark
  • Doris Behrens

Abstract

Consider a population of farmers who live around a lake. Each farmer engages in trade with his two adjacent neighbors. The trade is governed by a prisoner’s dilemma “rule of engagement.” A farmer’s payoff is the sum of the payoffs from the two prisoner’s dilemma games played with his two neighbors. When a farmer dies, his son takes over. The son decides whether to cooperate or defect by considering the actions taken and the payoffs received by the most prosperous members of the group comprising his own father and a set of his father’s neighbors. The size of this set, which can vary, is termed the “span of information.” It is shown that a larger span of information can be detrimental to the stable coexistence of cooperation and defection, and that in well-defined circumstances, a large span of information leads to an end of cooperation, whereas a small span does not. Conditions are outlined under which, when individuals’ optimization is based on the assessment of less information, the social outcome is better than when optimization is based on an assessment of, and a corresponding response to, more information.
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Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joevec:v:20:y:2010:i:1:p:77-94
    DOI: 10.1007/s00191-009-0137-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Stark, Oded & Jakubek, Marcin, 2011. "Is population growth conducive to the sustainability of cooperation?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 443-451.
    2. Boyer, Tristan & Jonard, Nicolas, 2014. "Imitation and efficient contagion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 20-32.
    3. S. Leitner & D.A. Behrens, 2015. "On the efficiency of hurdle rate-based coordination mechanisms," Mathematical and Computer Modelling of Dynamical Systems, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 413-431, September.
    4. Ludo Waltman & Nees Eck & Rommert Dekker & Uzay Kaymak, 2013. "An Evolutionary Model of Price Competition Among Spatially Distributed Firms," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 42(4), pages 373-391, December.
    5. Matthias Greiff, 2013. "Rewards and the private provision of public goods on dynamic networks," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 1001-1021, November.
    6. 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.
    7. Stephan Leitner & Doris Behrens, 2015. "On the fault (in)tolerance of coordination mechanisms for distributed investment decisions," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 23(1), pages 251-278, March.
    8. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-052 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Leitner, Stephan & Rausch, Alexandra & Behrens, Doris A., 2017. "Distributed investment decisions and forecasting errors: An analysis based on a multi-agent simulation model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 258(1), pages 279-294.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Span of interaction; Span of information; Imitation; Social welfare; D83; R12; O4;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

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