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Altruistic versus egoistic behavior in a Public Good game

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  • Matros, Alexander

Abstract

This paper analyzes an evolutionary version of the Public Good game in which boundedly rational agents can use imitation and best-reply decision rules. Several possibilities for both decision rules to be present in the population are considered. I show that altruistic behavior might survive if switching between the decision rules occurs less often than the probabilities of errors in choosing a strategy and if local neighborhoods are not too small or too large.

Suggested Citation

  • Matros, Alexander, 2012. "Altruistic versus egoistic behavior in a Public Good game," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 642-656.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:36:y:2012:i:4:p:642-656
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jedc.2011.12.004
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    Cited by:

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    2. Chakraborti, Rik & Maloney, Matt & Roberts, Gavin & Shogren, Jason F., 2018. "Social capital and the voluntary provision of public goods," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 196-208.
    3. Ladley, Daniel & Wilkinson, Ian & Young, Louise, 2015. "The impact of individual versus group rewards on work group performance and cooperation: A computational social science approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 2412-2425.
    4. Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Peeters, Ronald & Tenev, Anastas P. & Thuijsman, Frank, 2021. "Naïve imitation and partial cooperation in a local public goods model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 162-185.
    5. Daniel Ladley & Ian Wilkinson & Louise Young, 2013. "The Evolution Of Cooperation In Business: Individual Vs. Group Incentives," Discussion Papers in Economics 13/14, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    6. Jonas Hedlund, 2015. "Imitation in Cournot oligopolies with multiple markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(3), pages 567-587, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public good; Imitation; Best reply; Decision rules;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

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