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Altruism and envy in contests: An evolutionarily stable symbiosis

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  • Kai A. Konrad

Abstract

Altruists and envious people who meet in contests are symbionts. They do better than a population of narrowly rational individuals. If there are only altruists and envious individuals, a particular mixture of altruists and envious individuals is evolutionarily stable. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2004

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  • Kai A. Konrad, 2004. "Altruism and envy in contests: An evolutionarily stable symbiosis," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 22(3), pages 479-490, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:22:y:2004:i:3:p:479-490
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-003-0229-7
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    Cited by:

    1. Francisco Alvarez-Cuadrado & Ngo Van Long, 2012. "Envy and Inequality," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 949-973, September.
    2. Boudreau, James W. & Shunda, Nicholas, 2012. "On the evolution of prize perceptions in contests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 498-501.
    3. Kai A. Konrad & Florian Morath, 2011. "Evolutionarily stable in-group favoritism and out-group spite in intergroup conflict," Working Papers evolutionarily_stable, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    4. Siegel, Ron, 2014. "Asymmetric all-pay auctions with interdependent valuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 684-702.
    5. Irakli Japaridze, 2019. "Envy, inequality and fertility," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 923-945, September.
    6. Ian A. MacKenzie, 2009. "Controlling externalities in the presence of rent seeking," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 09/111, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    7. Liu, Zhiyang & Chen, Bo, 2016. "A symmetric two-player all-pay contest with correlated information," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 6-10.
    8. Alexander Matros & Alex Possajennikov, 2014. "Common Value Allocation Mechanisms with Private Information: Lotteries or Auctions?," Discussion Papers 2014-07, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    9. Kai A. Konrad & Florian Morath, 2018. "To Deter Or To Moderate? Alliance Formation In Contests With Incomplete Information," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(3), pages 1447-1463, July.
    10. Zhuoqiong Chen, 2021. "All-pay auctions with private signals about opponents’ values," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 25(1), pages 33-64, June.
    11. Kai A. Konrad & Florian Morath, 2011. "Aspirations of the middle class: voting on redistribution and status concerns," Working Papers aspirations_of_the_middle, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    12. Fausto Cavalli & Mario Gilli & Ahmad Naimzada, 2022. "Endogenous interdependent preferences in a dynamical contest model," Working Papers 492, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2022.
    13. Kim, Jeong-Yoo & Lee, Kyu-Min & Park, Sung-Hoon, 2022. "Evolution of revealing emotions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 597(C).
    14. Konrad, Kai A., 2007. "Strategy in contests: an introduction [Strategie in Turnieren – eine Einführung]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2007-01, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    15. Sherrill Shaffer, 2006. "Contests with interdependent preferences," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(13), pages 877-880.
    16. Sina Risse, 2011. "Two-stage group rent-seeking with negatively interdependent preferences," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 259-276, June.
    17. Mathieu-Bolh, Nathalie & Wendner, Ronald, 2020. "We are what we eat: Obesity, income, and social comparisons," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    18. Fonseca, Miguel A., 2009. "An experimental investigation of asymmetric contests," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 582-591, September.
    19. Sung-Hoon Park & Jeong-Yoo Kim, 2022. "Evolutionary stability of preferences: altruism, selfishness, and envy," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(2), pages 349-363, February.
    20. Holm, Joshua, 2016. "A model of redistribution under social identification in heterogeneous federations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 39-48.
    21. Nicolas Eber, 2011. "Fair play in contests," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 103(3), pages 253-270, July.
    22. Parashari, Gopal Sharan & Kumar, Vimal, 2020. "Destruction and settlement norms as determinants of conflict: An evolutionary perspective," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions

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