Social Norms, Institutions and Growth

9986170 Levine该项目的目标是为理解经济机构的出现和后果及其对增长的影响提供一个连贯的框架。纵观历史，很明显，一些机构相对比其他机构更成功。哪些机构会涌现，哪些机构会成功？需要什么样的社会规范来支持特定的机构？生产技术对机构有何影响？该项目在理论上和实验室中解决这些问题，并将调查结果与历史和当前的机构联系起来。短期目标是开发简单的模型，使我们能够了解在特定环境中将出现哪些社会规范和机构，并将其与实地和实验室观察到的社会规范和机构联系起来。长期目标是提供一个完整的理论。各个机构在促进增长、提高效率和抑制冲突的程度上有所不同。我们对竞争环境的了解相对较深。人们对非竞争性环境的理解较少。从实验室实验和随意的经验主义来看，对待他人的态度发挥着重要作用，这在竞争环境中是不起作用的。对于小麦市场来说，消费者个人对某个麦农的感受并不重要。然而，高层员工对雇主的态度直接关系到公司的成功程度。这个项目采取的观点是，对他人的态度是作为一种平衡现象产生的社会规范。动态平衡决定了人们在某个时刻的偏好，这种偏好可能是利他主义的，也可能是恶意的，尽管存在潜在的自私。第一个项目是关于这种社会规范如何发挥作用来支持一个简单和原始的社会的理论研究。随着人口规模和信息技术参数的不同，这种简单的平等主义均衡是如何被打破的。这为理解更复杂的机构必须处理的问题奠定了坚实的基础。与此相辅相成的是，第二个项目旨在检查实验室中现有的社会规范。关键问题之一是社会规范的一致性。是特定的球员怀有恶意，还是他们的怨恨是由对方球员的游戏引发的？社会规范在不同规模的人群中有何不同？社会规范会适应实验室中的平衡吗？如果是的话，时间跨度是什么？信息如何发挥作用，使玩家能够确定对手的意图，这是否会对他们的比赛产生影响？这些是我们计划在实验室研究的一些问题。当我们超越简单的相对平等的机构时。专业化变得很重要。专业化在发展和技术进步中也至关重要。第三个分项目继续以前关于爆炸性增长的工作，但规模收益递减。我们的目标是更仔细地检查专业化的作用，并明确地将其与由于想法或设计而存在固定成本的经济体进行比较。我们在该领域观察到的制度的关键要素之一是强调避免代价高昂的冲突。最后一个项目的重点是冲突及其产生的原因。它扩展了现有关于冲突的静态文献，以审查由于时间一致性问题而可能产生冲突的程度，并通过一系列小让步来避免冲突。

9986170LevineThe goal of the project is to provide a coherent framework for understanding the emergence and consequences of economic institutions and their impact on growth. Examining wide spans of history, it is apparent that some institutions are relatively more successful than others. Which institutions will emerge, and which will be successful? What social norms are needed to support particular institutions? How does production technology impact on institutions? This project addresses these issues theoretically and in the laboratory and relates the findings to historical and current institutions. The short-term goal is to develop simple models that enable us to understand which social norms and institutions will emerge in particular environments, and to relate this to social norms and institutions observed in the field and laboratory. The long-term goal is to provide an integrated theory.Institutions differ in the extent to which they promote growth, efficiency and inhibit conflict. Competitive environments we understand relatively well. Non-competitive environments are less well understood. From laboratory experiments, as well as casual empiricism, attitudes towards others play an important role that they do not play in competitive environments. It matters little to the wheat market how a consumer personally feels about a particular wheat farmer. However, the attitude of a top-level employee toward an employer has a direct bearing on how successful the firm will be. The perspective taken in this project is that attitudes towards others are social norms that arise as an equilibrium phenomenon. The dynamic equilibrium determines preferences at a moment of time that may be altruistic or spiteful, despite underlying selfishness. The first project is a theoretical study of how such social norms function to support a simple and primitive society. How does this simple egalitarian equilibrium breaks down as the population size and parameters of information and technology vary. This gives a solid foundation for understanding what problems more complex institutions must deal with.Complementary to this, the second project is designed to examine existing social norms in the laboratory. One of the key questions is the consistency of social norms. Are particular players spiteful, or is their spite triggered by the play of opposing players? How do social norms differ in populations of different sizes? Will social norms adapt to equilibrium in the laboratory, and if so, over what time horizon? How does information play a role in enabling players to determine the intentions of their opponents, and does this make a difference to their play? These are some of the issues we plan to study in the laboratory.As we move beyond simple relatively egalitarian institutions. specialization becomes important. Specialization is also crucial in development and technological progress. The third sub-project continues previous work on explosive growth with diminishing returns to scale. The goal is to examine more closely the role of specialization, and make an explicit comparison to economies in which there are fixed costs due to ideas or designs.One of the key elements of institutions we observe in the field is the emphasis on avoiding costly conflict. The final project focuses on conflict and why it arises. It extend an existing static literature on conflict to examine the extent to which conflict may arise due to time consistency problems, and be avoided through a series of small concessions.