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Social finance as cultural evolution, transmission bias, and market dynamics

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  • Erol Akçay

    (Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104)

  • David Hirshleifer

    (Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617)

Abstract

The thoughts and behaviors of financial market participants depend upon adopted cultural traits, including information signals, beliefs, strategies, and folk economic models. Financial traits compete to survive in the human population and are modified in the process of being transmitted from one agent to another. These cultural evolutionary processes shape market outcomes, which in turn feed back into the success of competing traits. This evolutionary system is studied in an emerging paradigm, social finance. In this paradigm, social transmission biases determine the evolution of financial traits in the investor population. It considers an enriched set of cultural traits, both selection on traits and mutation pressure, and market equilibrium at different frequencies. Other key ingredients of the paradigm include psychological bias, social network structure, information asymmetries, and institutional environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Erol Akçay & David Hirshleifer, 2021. "Social finance as cultural evolution, transmission bias, and market dynamics," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(26), pages 2015568118-, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:118:y:2021:p:e2015568118
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    Cited by:

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    2. Zhao, Dongxu & Li, Kai, 2022. "Bounded rationality, adaptive behaviour, and asset prices," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. Bailey, Michael & Gupta, Abhinav & Hillenbrand, Sebastian & Kuchler, Theresa & Richmond, Robert & Stroebel, Johannes, 2021. "International trade and social connectedness," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    4. Akcay, Erol & Ohashi, Ryotaro, 2023. "The floating duck syndrome: biased social learning leads to effort-reward imbalances," SocArXiv qx7ku, Center for Open Science.
    5. Xifeng Wu & Yue Shen & Jin Chen & Yu Chen, 2023. "Social–financial approach for analyzing financial transitions," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, December.
    6. Bryce Morsky & Fuwei Zhuang & Zuojun Zhou, 2023. "Social and individual learning in the Minority Game," Papers 2307.11846, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    evolutionary finance; cultural evolution; social interaction; behavioral economics; social finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D25 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice: Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • D53 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Financial Markets
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • D - Microeconomics

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