Experimental Evolution and Economics

Authors

Terence C. Burnham, Chapman UniversityFollow
Aimee Dunlap, University of Missouri - St. Louis
David W. Stephens, University of Minnesota - St. Paul

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Abstract

This is a theory paper that advocates experimental evolution as a novel approach to study economic preferences. Economics could benefit because preferences are exogenous, axiomatic, and contentious. Experimental evolution allows the empirical study of preferences by placing organisms in designed environments and studying their genotype and phenotype over multiple generations. We describe a number of empirical studies on different aspects of preferences. We argue that experimental evolution has the potential to improve economics.

Comments

This article was originally published in SAGE Open, volume 5, issue 4, in 2015. DOI: 10.1177/2158244015612524

Recommended Citation

Burnham, T.C., Dunlap, A., & Stephens, D.W. (2015). Experimental evolution and economics. SAGE Open, 5(4). http://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015612524

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

The authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.