IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/822.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Human nature and institutional analysis

Author

Abstract

This essay reviews some findings in cognition sciences and examines their consequences for the analysis of institutions. It starts by exploring how humans’ specialization in producing knowledge ensures our success in dominating the environment but also changes fast our environment. So fast that it did not give time to natural selection to adapt our biology, causing it to be potentially maladapted in important dimensions. A main function of institutions is therefore to fill the gap between the demands of our relatively new environment and our biology, still adapted to our ancestral environment as hunter-gatherers. Moreover, institutions are built with the available elements, which include our instincts. A deeper understanding of both aspects, their adaptive function and this recruitment of ancestral instincts, will add greatly to our ability to manage institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Benito Arruñada, 2005. "Human nature and institutional analysis," Economics Working Papers 822, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:822
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/822.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Ronald H. Coase, 2022. "Adam Smith's View of Man," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 19(2), pages 329–348-3, September.
    3. Bailey, Martin J, 1992. "Approximate Optimality of Aboriginal Property Rights," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 183-198, April.
    4. Kleiter, Gernot D. & Krebs, Marianne & Doherty, Michael E. & Garavan, Hugh & Chadwick, Randall & Brake, Gregory, 1997. "Do Subjects Understand Base Rates?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 25-61, October.
    5. Frank, Robert H, 1987. "If Homo Economicus Could Choose His Own Utility Function, Would He Want One with a Conscience?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 593-604, September.
    6. Cosmides, Leda & Tooby, John, 1994. "Better than Rational: Evolutionary Psychology and the Invisible Hand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 327-332, May.
    7. Joseph Henrich & Robert Boyd & Samuel Bowles & Colin Camerer & Ernst Fehr & Herbert Gintis & Richard McElreath, 2001. "Cooperation, Reciprocity and Punishment in Fifteen Small-scale Societies," Working Papers 01-01-007, Santa Fe Institute.
    8. Vernon L. Smith, 2003. "Constructivist and Ecological Rationality in Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 465-508, June.
    9. Valley, Kathleen & Thompson, Leigh & Gibbons, Robert & Bazerman, Max H., 2002. "How Communication Improves Efficiency in Bargaining Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 127-155, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Kanazawa, Satoshi, 2005. "Is "discrimination" necessary to explain the sex gap in earnings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 269-287, April.
    2. Jonathan D. Cohen, 2005. "The Vulcanization of the Human Brain: A Neural Perspective on Interactions Between Cognition and Emotion," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 3-24, Fall.
    3. Ben-Ner, Avner & Putterman, Louis & Kong, Fanmin & Magan, Dan, 2004. "Reciprocity in a two-part dictator game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 333-352, March.
    4. Ramalingam, Abhijit, 2009. ""Endogenous" Relative Concerns: The Impact of Workers' Characteristics on Status and Pro ts in the Firm," MPRA Paper 18759, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Grossmann, Volker, 2002. "Is it rational to internalize the personal norm that one should reciprocate?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 27-48, February.
    6. Marie-Laure Cabon-Dhersin & Nathalie Etchart-Vincent, 2008. "Cooperation in a Game of Chicken with Heterogeneous Agents: An Experimental Study," CIRED Working Papers hal-00395939, HAL.
    7. Vafai, Kouroche, 2002. "Preventing abuse of authority in hierarchies," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(8), pages 1143-1166, October.
    8. Samuel Ferey & Yannick Gabuthy & Nicolas Jacquemet, 2013. "L'apport de l'économie expérimentale dans l'élaboration des politiques publiques," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(2), pages 155-194.
    9. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00879205 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Joseph Henrich, 2001. "In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 73-78, May.
    11. Altman, Morris, 2014. "Insights from behavioral economics on how labor markets work," Working Paper Series 18843, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    12. Daniel Friedman & Nirvikar Singh, 2004. "Vengefulness Evolves in Small Groups," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Steffen Huck (ed.), Advances in Understanding Strategic Behaviour, chapter 3, pages 28-54, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Friedman, Daniel & Singh, Nirvikar, 2003. "Negative Reciprocity: The Coevolution of Memes and Genes," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt8n49r3t2, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    14. Rajiv Sethi & E. Somanathan, 2001. "Norm Compliance and Strong Reciprocity," Working Papers 01-09-048, Santa Fe Institute.
    15. Beugré, Constant D., 2009. "Exploring the neural basis of fairness: A model of neuro-organizational justice," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 129-139, November.
    16. Fali Huang, 2007. "Building Social Trust: A Human-Capital Approach," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(4), pages 552-573, December.
    17. Abhijit Ramalingam & Michael T. Rauh, 2010. "The Firm as a Socialization Device," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(12), pages 2191-2206, December.
    18. Abhijit Ramalingam & Michael Rauh, 2008. "Firms, Markets, and the Work Ethic," Working Papers 2008-04, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    19. Eugen Dimant & Michele Gelfand & Anna Hochleitner & Silvia Sonderegger, 2022. "Strategic Behavior with Tight, Loose and Polarized Norms," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 198, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    20. Arruñada Benito & Andonova Veneta, 2008. "Judges' Cognition and Market Order," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(2), pages 665-692, December.
    21. Mohammad Nasih & Raden Roro Widya Ningtyas Soeprajitno & Iman Harymawan & John Nowland, 2023. "Top Company Officers and Auditor School-ties on Audit Fee: Evidence From Indonesia," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Evolution; biology; behavior; institutions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact

    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:upf:upfgen:822. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.upf.edu/ .

    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.