The Very Long View

Our way of life on this planet is threatened by our short-sighted behavior. Cooperation and altruism might avert disaster, but recent scholarship suggests that such behaviors are often unsustainable, driven out by various forms of egoism. This blog is meant to stimulate discussion of strategies whose goal is the cultivation and sustainability of behaviors that might avert defective long run equilibria, including extinction as a poor, albeit not necessarily worst case, scenario.

Monday, October 19, 2009

The Clinton Global IQ Quiz

I have been away for too long, but like many busy teachers with too little time to write lectures, today I am going to play a movie:

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/globaliq/

Make sure you check out the Clinton Climate Change Initiative web pages, as well.

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Readings in Climate/Environmental Change

Climate Change Could Drive Vast Migrations: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2495
Climate Change Site: US Environmental Protection Agency. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/
Cline, William, Global Warming and Agriculture: Impact Estimates by Country. Center for Global Development, 2007.
Earth from Space: http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/efs/mm.htm
Europa: Activities of the European Union. http://europa.eu/pol/env/index_en.htm
Extinctions: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4A501920081106
Hansen, James, "Dangerous Human-Made Interference with Climate: a GISS ModelE Study," Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2007: 2287-2312.
Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. Little, Brown & Co., 1999.
ISS
Man-made impacts: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE49T81020081030
Royal Society on Man-made Climate Change: http://royalsociety.org/news.asp?id=6245
Sachs, Jeffrey, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. Penguin, 2008.
Tormenting the Whales: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL3508293
Trash Talk: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5296OE20090311
View from Down Under: http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20070402-13602.html

Readings in Cooperation and Altruism

*(Starting Point) Hauert, Christopher. Public Goods Games (interactive). http://www.univie.ac.at/virtuallabs/PublicGoods/
**(Alternative starting point for altruism route.) Gintis, et al., Explaining Altruistic Behavior in Humans. Evolution and Human Behavior 24 (2003). Link to this paper provided in Links section.
Axelrod, Robert, The Evolution of Cooperation. Basic Books, 1984.
Axelrod, Robert. The Complexity of Cooperation. Princeton University Press, 1997.
Branas-Garza, Pablo, Promoting Helping Behavior with Framing in Dictator Games. Journal of Economic Psychology 28 (2007).
Briggs, Helen. Altruism In-Built in Humans. BBC report. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4766490.stm
Charness, Gary and Uri Gneezy, What's in a Name? Anonymity and Social Distance in Dictator and Ultimatum Games. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 68, 2008.
Cordes, Christian, et al., A Naturalistic Approach to the Theory of the Firm: The Role of Cooperation and Cultural Evolution. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 68 (2008).
Gintis, et al., eds., Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life. MIT Press, 2005.
Gintis, Herbert. The Hitchhiker's Guide to Altruism. Journal of Theoretical Biology, vol. 220, 2003.
Hauert, Christopher, et al., Volunteering as Red Queen Mechanism for Cooperation in Public Goods Games. Science, vol. 296, 10 May 2002.
Hauert, Christopher, The Evolution of Cooperation. Springer Verlag, 1999.
Henrich, Natalie and Joseph Henrich, Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation. Oxford, 2007.
Kranton, Rachel, The Formation of Cooperative Relationships. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, v. 12, 1996.
Macy, Michael and John Skvoretz, The Evolution of Trust and Cooperation Between Strangers: A Computational Model. American Sociological Review, vol. 63, 1998.
Nowak, Martin and Karl Sigmund, Cooperation versus Competition. Association for Investment Management and Research. July/August 2000.
Nowak, Martin, Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life. Harvard University Press, 2006. .
Rawls, John, edited by Erin Kelly, Society as a Fair System of Cooperation. Section 2, pt. I, pp. 5-8. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Harvard, 2001.
Seabright, Paul. The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life. Princeton University Press, 2004.
Upton, Robin and Rosamund Stock, Altruistic Economics. Online only at: http://www.altruists.org/static/files/ae3-draft-20050126.pdf

Readings in Decision Theory: Normative (*) and Descriptive

*Bather, John. Decision Theory: An Introduction to Dynamic Programming and Sequential Decisions. Wiley, 2000.
*Clemen, Robert and Terrence Reilly, Making Hard Decisions. Duxbury, 2001.
*Golub, Andrew Lang. Decision Analysis. Wiley, 1997.
*Green, Donald and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory. Yale University Press, 1994.
*Jeffrey, Richard. Subjective Probability: The Real Thing. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
*Kreps, David. Notes on the Theory of Choice. Westview, 1988.
*Lee, Peter, Bayesian Statistics. Hodder Arnold, 2004.
*Luce, R. Duncan and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions. Wiley, 1957.
*Nozick, Robert. The Nature of Rationality. Princeton University Press, 1993.
*Pratt, John, Howard Raiffa and Robert Schlaifer, Statistical Decision Theory. MIT Press, 2001.
*Raiffa, Howard, Decision Analysis. Addison-Wesley, 1970. (The classic but out of print.)
*Zeckhauser, Richard, Ralph Kenney and James Sebenius, Wise Choices. Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
Ariely, Dan, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. Harper Collins, 2008.
Barkow, Jerome, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, eds., The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford, 1992.
Baron, Jonathan, Thinking and Deciding. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Bazerman, Max, Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. Wiley, 2006.
Brafman, Ori and Rom Barfman, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. Doubleday, 2008.
Burnham, Terry and Jay Phelan, Mean Genes. Perseus, 2000.
Claxton, Guy. Hare Brain and Tortoise Mind. Ecco Press, 1997.
Damasio, Antonio, Descartes' Error. Avon Books, 1994.
Damasio, Antonio, The Feeling of What Happens. Harcourt Brace, 1999.
Dawes, Robyn, Rational Choice in an Uncertain World. Harcourt Brace, 1988.
Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 1989.
Elster, Jon, Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Fortunato, Michael, Tversky's Ghost. Proceedings AAoS Conference, All About Mentoring, Spring 2003.
Gigerenzer, Gerd, Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World. Oxford, 2000.
Gigerenzer, Gerd. Gut Feelings. Penguin, 2007.
Glimcher, Paul, Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics. MIT Press, 2004.
Goldsmith, Timothy, The Biological Roots of Human Nature. Oxford University Press, 1991.
Goldstein, William and Robin Hogarth, eds., Research on Judgment and Decision Making. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Hogarth, Robin, Educating Intuition. University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Hogarth, Robin, Judgment and Choice. Wiley, 1987.
Kahnemann, Daniel, Maps of Bounded Rationality: A Perspective on Intuitive Judgment and Choice. Nobel Prize lecture, 2002.
Kidder, Rushworth, How Good People Make Tough Choices. Fireside, 1995.
Klein, Gary. Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions. MIT Press, 1998.
Plous, Scott, The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. McGraw Hill, 1993.
Rouse, William, Don't Jump to Solutions: Thirteen Delusions that Undermine Strategic Thinking. Joseey-Bass, 1998.
Russo, Edward and Paul Schoemaker, Winning Decisions. Doubleday, 2002.
Russo, Edward J. and Paul Schoemaker, Decision Traps: The Ten Barriers to Brilliant Decision-making and How to Overcome Them. Fireside, 1989.
Schacter, Daniel, The Seven Sins of Memory. Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Sternberg, Robert, ed., Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid. Yale, 2002.
Sutherland, Stuart, Irrationality: Why We Don't Think Straight. Rutgers University Press, 1992.
Von Neumann, John and Oskar Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton University Press, 1980 (1944).
Wilson, E.O., Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Harvard University Press, 1975.

Readings in Behavioral Economics (critiques of normative theory by economists or using economics)

Bowles, Samuel, Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions and Evolution. Princeton and Oxford University Presses, 2004.
Camerer, Colin, George Loewenstein, and Matthew Rabin, Advances in Behavioral Economics. Russell Sage Foundation, 2004.
Henrich, Joseph, et al., 'Economic Man' in Cross-Cultural Experiments: Behavioral Experiments in Fifteen Small Scale Societies. Behavioral and Brain Science 28 (2005). A version of this wonderful paper has been published elsewhere, as well, and can be found in many forms. This version: http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBBS%2FBBS28_06%2FS0140525X05000142a.pdf&code=19db1cd5d6565148ff41ae708a1ef5e1.
Parvin, Manoucher, Is Teaching Neoclassical Economics as the Science of Economics Moral? The Journal of Economic Education, vol. 23., no. 1, Winter 1992. (mplied by Behavioral Economics, but not part of it.)
Shermer, Michael, The Mind of the Market. Times Books, 2008.
Shleifer, Andre, Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Thaler, Richard, Quasi-Rational Economics. Russell Sage Foundation, 1994.
Thaler, Richard. The Winner's Curse. Princeton University Press, 1992.

Readings in The Tragedy of the Commons

Brown, James Robert, Privatizing the University: The New Tragedy of the Commons. Essays on Science and Society. Science, vol. 290, no. 5497, 1 December 2000.
Crowe, Beryl, The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited. Science, vol. 166, 28 November 1969.
Dietz, Thomas, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul Stern, The Struggle to Govern the Commons. Science, vol. 302, 12 December 2003.
Hardin, Garrett, Extensions on 'The Tragedy of the Commons'. Essays on Science and Society. Science, vol. 280, May 1998.
Hardin, Garrett, The Tragedy of the Commons, Science, vol. 162, December 1968.
Ostrom, Elinor, et al., Revisting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges. Science, vol. 284, 9 April 1999. www.sciencemag.org
Tragedy of the Commons. Entry in the Library of Economics and Liberty. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html

Readings in Evolutionary Game Theory (*) and Evolutionary Economics

*Poundstone, William, Prisoner's Dilemma: John Von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb. Doubleday, 1992.
*Samuelson, Larry, Evolutionary Games and Equilibrium Selection. MIT Press, 1997.
Brandenburger, Adam and Barry Nalebuff, Co-opetition. Doubleday, 1996.
Dopfer, Kurt, ed., The Evolutionary Foundation of Economics. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Gintis, Herbert, The Bounds of Reason: Game Theory and the Unification of the Behavioral Sciences. Princeton University Press, 2009.
McElreath, Richard and Robert Boyd, Mathematical Models of Social Evolution. University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Nelson, Richard and Sidney Winter, The Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Harvard University Press, 1982.
Nowak, Martin, Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life. Harvard University Press, 2006.
Schelling, Thomas. Choice and Consequence. Harvard University Press, 1984.

Readings in Complex Problem Solving and Failure

Dorner, Dietrich, The Logic of Failure. Basic Books, 1996.
Fichman, Mark, Straining Towards Trust: Some Constraints on Studying Trust in Organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, vol. 24, 2003.
Finkelstein, Sydney. Why Smart Executives Fail. Penguin Books, 2003.
Hammond, Kenneth. Human Judgment and Social Policy: Irreducible Uncertainty, Inevitable Error, and Unavoidable Injustice. Oxford University Press, 1996.
Kosko, Bart, Fuzzy Thinking. Hyperion, 1993.
Morris, Charles. The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown. Public Affairs, 2008.
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets. Thomson, 2004.