IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000089/009312.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Out of sight, out of mind: Modern economics, social interactions, and Smith´s sympathy

Author

Listed:
  • Andrés Álvarez
  • Jimena Hurtado

Abstract

After having reviewed some of the recent advances in Economics trying to incorporate new elements in our understanding of human interactions, we aim at contributing to this line of research using Adam Smith´s system of sympathy. The features Smithattributes to the intersubjective identification mechanism of sympathy lead not only to conceive the construction of a community but also the possibility of exclusion of some of its members. The asymmetry of sympathy allows explaining emulationof those seen as more fortunate as well as the exclusion of those perceived as miserable. Through a formal representation we try to illustrate the phenomena of inclusion and exclusion present in intersubjetive relations and the construction of communities.Keywords: Adam Smith, sympathy, emulation, exclusion.JEL Codes: B12, B31, D03.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrés Álvarez & Jimena Hurtado, 2012. "Out of sight, out of mind: Modern economics, social interactions, and Smith´s sympathy," Documentos CEDE 9312, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:009312
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/41015/dcede2012-01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel J. Benjamin & James J. Choi & A. Joshua Strickland, 2010. "Social Identity and Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1913-1928, September.
    2. Sally, David, 2001. "On sympathy and games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 1-30, January.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2002. "Altruistic punishment in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6868), pages 137-140, January.
    4. Levy, David M. & Peart, Sandra J., 2009. "Sympathy, evolution, and The Economist," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 29-36, July.
    5. Collins, Anne D. & Lim, Jamus Jerome, 2010. "Recognition, redistribution, and liberty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 240-252, June.
    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. Jimena Hurtado, 2016. "On the Possibility of Justice in Commercial Society according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith," Documentos CEDE 14633, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    2. Gianni Vaggi & Sara Stefanini, 2014. "On open identity; otherness, distance and self-command; Smith and the view of justice," DEM Working Papers Series 073, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.

    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. Drouvelis, Michalis & Malaeb, Bilal & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Wahba, Jackline, 2021. "Cooperation in a fragmented society: Experimental evidence on Syrian refugees and natives in Lebanon," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 176-191.
    2. Zak, Paul J., 2011. "Moral markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 212-233, February.
    3. Bicskei, Marianna & Lankau, Matthias & Bizer, Kilian, 2016. "Negative reciprocity and its relation to anger-like emotions in identity-homogeneous and -heterogeneous groups," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 17-34.
    4. Fuhai Hong & Larry Karp & Tat-How Teh, 2021. "Identity in public goods contribution," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(3), pages 617-664, October.
    5. Ortiz-Riomalo, Juan Felipe & Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Engel, Stefanie, 2022. "Fostering co-operation through participation in natural resource management. An integrative review," EconStor Preprints 253261, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Michalis Drouvelis & Robert Metcalfe & Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2015. "Can priming cooperation increase public good contributions?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 79(3), pages 479-492, November.
    7. Checchi, Daniele & Visser, Jelle & van de Werfhorst, Herman G., 2007. "Inequality and Union Membership: The Impact of Relative Earnings Position and Inequality Attitudes," IZA Discussion Papers 2691, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Carlo Borzaga & Ermanno Tortia, 2004. "Worker involvement in entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations. Toward a new assessment of workers' perceived satisfaction and fairness," Department of Economics Working Papers 0409, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    9. Christoph Engel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2011. "Fairness Ex Ante and Ex Post: Experimentally Testing Ex Post Judicial Intervention into Blockbuster Deals," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(4), pages 682-708, December.
    10. Kamei, Kenju, 2016. "Information Disclosure and Cooperation in a Finitely-repeated Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 75100, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Christian Thöni, 2014. "Inequality aversion and antisocial punishment," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 529-545, April.
    12. Kerri Brick & Martine Visser & Justine Burns, 2012. "Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence from South African Fishing Communities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 133-152.
    13. Gonzalo Olcina & Vicente Calabuig, 2015. "Coordinated Punishment and the Evolution of Cooperation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(2), pages 147-173, April.
    14. Schnellenbach, Jan, 2012. "Nudges and norms: On the political economy of soft paternalism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 266-277.
    15. Christine Clavien & Colby J Tanner & Fabrice Clément & Michel Chapuisat, 2012. "Choosy Moral Punishers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-6, June.
    16. Andrea Bshary & Redouan Bshary, 2012. "Individual Differences in Foraging Strategies of Parasitic Sabre-Tooth Blennies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-9, September.
    17. Marco Tomassini & Alberto Antonioni, 2019. "Computational Behavioral Models for Public Goods Games on Social Networks," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-14, September.
    18. Vicente Ortún & Ricard Meneu & Salvador Peiró, 2004. "El impacto de los servicios sanitarios sobre la salud," Economics Working Papers 752, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    19. Karbowski, Adam, 2011. "O kilku modelach samolubnego karania w ekonomii behawioralnej [Evolution of altruism in the light of behavioral economics]," MPRA Paper 69604, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Almeida, Sergio, 2023. "Punishment credibility and cooperation in public good games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 106(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Adam Smith; sympathy; emulation; exclusion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith)
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:col:000089:009312. 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: Universidad De Los Andes-Cede (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceandco.html .

    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.