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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.

Suggested Citation

  • Kai A. Konrad, 2002. "Altruism and Envy in Contests: An Evolutionarily Stable Symbiosis," CESifo Working Paper Series 825, CESifo Group Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_825
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lindbeck, Assar & Weibull, Jorgen W, 1988. "Altruism and Time Consistency: The Economics of Fait Accompli," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(6), pages 1165-1182, December.
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    3. Bergstrom, Theodore C, 1995. "On the Evolution of Altruistic Ethical Rules for Siblings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 58-81, March.
    4. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Stark, Oded, 1993. "How Altruism Can Prevail in an Evolutionary Environment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 149-155, May.
    5. Huck, Steffen & Oechssler, Jorg, 1999. "The Indirect Evolutionary Approach to Explaining Fair Allocations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 13-24, July.
    6. Bester, Helmut & Guth, Werner, 1998. "Is altruism evolutionarily stable?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 193-209, February.
    7. Dan Kovenock & Michael R. Baye & Casper G. de Vries, 1996. "The all-pay auction with complete information (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 8(2), pages 291-305.
    8. Amann, Erwin & Leininger, Wolfgang, 1996. "Asymmetric All-Pay Auctions with Incomplete Information: The Two-Player Case," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, May.
    9. Mui, Vai-Lam, 1995. "The economics of envy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 311-336, May.
    10. Becker, Gary S, 1976. "Altruism, Egoism, and Genetic Fitness: Economics and Sociobiology," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 817-826, September.
    11. Neil Bruce & Michael Waldman, 1990. "The Rotten-Kid Theorem Meets the Samaritan's Dilemma," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 105(1), pages 155-165.
    12. Glazer, Amihai & Hassin, Refael, 1988. "Optimal Contests," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(1), pages 133-143, January.
    13. 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.
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Holm, Joshua, 2016. "A model of redistribution under social identification in heterogeneous federations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 39-48.
    3. Boudreau, James W. & Shunda, Nicholas, 2012. "On the evolution of prize perceptions in contests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 498-501.
    4. Petur O. Jonsson, 2011. "On utilitarianism vs virtue ethics as foundations of economic choice theory," Humanomics: The International Journal of Systems and Ethics, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 24-40, February.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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, Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB).
    8. Kai A. Konrad & Florian Morath, 2015. "To deter or to moderate? Alliance formation in contests with incomplete information," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2015-15, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    9. 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.
    10. Sina Risse, 2011. "Two-stage group rent-seeking with negatively interdependent preferences," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 259-276, June.
    11. Siegel, Ron, 2014. "Asymmetric all-pay auctions with interdependent valuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 684-702.
    12. Liu, Zhiyang & Chen, Bo, 2016. "A symmetric two-player all-pay contest with correlated information," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 6-10.
    13. Fonseca, Miguel A., 2009. "An experimental investigation of asymmetric contests," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 582-591, September.
    14. Nicolas Eber, 2011. "Fair play in contests," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 103(3), pages 253-270, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    altruism; envy; contests; evolutionary stability;

    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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