A new GLO Discussion Paper examines the evolutionary dynamics of a population composed of Nash agents and Epictetusian agents matched randomly and interacting in the prisoner’s dilemma game.
GLO Discussion Paper No. 1230, 2023
Epictetusian Rationality and Evolutionary Stability – Download PDF
by Ponthiere, Gregory
GLO Fellow Gregory Ponthiere
Author Abstract: An economic interpretation of Epictetus’s precept of ‘Taking away aversion from all things not in our power’ consists of extending the domain of indifference beyond its boundaries under non-ethical preferences, so as to yield indifference between outcomes differing only on things outside one’s control. This paper examines the evolutionary dynamics of a population composed of Nash agents and Epictetusian agents matched randomly and interacting in the prisoner’s dilemma game. It is shown that, whether or not the types of players are common knowledge, neither the Nash nor the Epictetusian type is an evolutionary stable strategy under perfectly random matching. However, if the matching process exhibits a sufficiently high degree of assortativity, the Epictetusian type is an evolutionary stable strategy, and drives the Nash type to extinction.
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PUBLISHED
Vol. 36, Issue 1, January 2023: Journal of Population Economics (JOPE) 16 articles. https://link.springer.com/journal/148/volumes-and-issues/36-1
Watch the videos of article presentations on December 1, 2022 during the GLO Global Conference 2022.
JOPE has CiteScore 6.5 (2021, LINK) & Impact Factor 4.7 (2021, LINK)
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