Tagged: Game theory
Quotes
Sam Bowles, A Cooperative Species (2011)
- Even presupposing extraordinary cognitive capacities and levels of patience among the cooperating individuals, there is no reason to believe that a group of more than two individuals would ever discover the cooperative Nash equilibria that the [Folk Theorem] models have identified, and if it were to hit on one, its members would almost certainly abandon it in short order.#
Posts
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The Feudal Origins of the Western Legal Tradition
This paper draws a distinction between ‘communitarian’ and ‘rationalist’ legal orders on the basis of the implied political strategy. We argue that the West’s solution to the paradox of governance – that a government strong enough to protect rights cannot itself be restrained from violating those rights – originates in . . . -
Inside and Outside Perspectives on Legitimacy: An Economic Theory of the Noble Lie
The impossibility of constructing totally incentive-compatible institutions, whether organizationally or politically, implies the necessity of something like what has traditionally been called a “noble lie”. Specifically, drawing on the theory of cooperation, the paper argues that viable social organization requires a systematic divergence between subjective preferences and the objective fitness . . .