On Explaining Why the (Human) World is Rich

The wealth of the modern world is a natural historical marvel.  Explaining it has traditionally been the purview of economic historians, as exemplified by the recent book How the World Became Rich by Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin.  But economic historians tend to only ask process-oriented “how” questions and “by what means” questions of the Great Enrichment. The eight co-authors of Explaining Technology, who are not economic historians, engage in the debate asking a different question.  Their goal is to explain the exponential shape of our enrichment with a model of the combinatorial evolution of technology.  With an eye toward how we ask questions of the Great Enrichment, I propose broadening our inquiries to include questions typically overlooked in modern economic science, namely, “What form does it take? and “For what purpose?”

Territory in the State of Nature

In this paper we examine territorial behavior in the ecological conditions that foster conflict. We develop an economic model that isolates the effects of resource skew on territorial ranges, as well as their interactions with unequal appropriation abilities. We then conduct a controlled laboratory experiment to test the predictions of our model and find that observed behavior tends to cluster around the equilibrium predictions and that all comparative statics have the predicted sign. Additionally, we find that equally strong appropriators select more exclusive and less overlapping ranges than what is predicted with symmetric resources, while weaker appropriators choose more engulfed ranges than what is predicted with skewed resources.

Comparative Economics: How Studying Other Primates Helps Us Better Understand the Evolution of Our Own Economic Decision-Making

Anything for a Cheerio: Brown Capuchins (Sapajus [Cebus] apella) Consistently Coordinate in an Assurance Game for Unequal Payoffs

Consistent Differences in a Virtual World Model of Ape Societies

Capuchin Monkeys (Sapajus [Cebus] apella) Play Nash Equilibria, But Their Decisions Are Not Likely Influenced by Oxytocin

Human and Monkey Responses in a Symmetric Game of Conflict with Asymmetric Equilibria

Differential Responding by Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and Humans (Homo sapiens) to Variable Outcomes in the Assurance Game

Comparative Approaches to Studying Strategy: Towards an Evolutionary Account of Primate Decision Making

Old World Monkeys are More Similar to Humans than New World Monkeys When Playing a Coordination Game

Responses to the Assurance Game in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans Using Equivalent Procedures