An evolutionary take on behavioral economics

As usual I think this is nonsense. You can't reason based on evolution because we don't know anything about the evolutionary environment, and even if we did it is difficult to know what is adaptive from first principles. Anyone who thinks behavior must proceed from adaptive consequence should spend some time watching panda bear videos.

Furthermore this post is riddled with flawed assumptions. Just two examples: its posited that differential investment must have a consequence in psychology. Well, why? Not all organisms have the same reproductive strategies. The mantis tells us nothing about human reproduction. Furthermore the effects of culture can swamp any evolutionary inference we might make. Genghis is a counterexample, not a proof: his success was only the product of culture, not biology, and would be impossible in the evolutionary background.

Second, all of the stuff about conspicuous consumption is hogwash. Sexual selection does not mean that you can start dragging a huge millstone around and suddenly people will find you attractive; it presumes that a particular feature has evolved to be preferred. There were no Patek watches in the Rift Valley; evolution cannot be operating on them. Also, as pointed out this is a controversial theory, hardly one to hang your head on.

In sum, the notion that you can proceed beyond ecological rationalism is bunk. We have no idea what is or was really adaptive behavior. To pretend we do is certainly sexy. But it is bullshit.

Has Alan Kirman ever read Hayek?

Here's a quote from the Road to Serfdom:

"The state should confine itself to establishing rules applying to general types of situations and should allow the individuals freedom in everything which depends on the circumstances of time and place, because only the individuals concerned in each instance can fully know these circumstances and adapt their actions to them. If the individuals are able to use their knowledge effectively in making plans, they must be able to predict actions of the state which may affect these plans. But if the actions of the state are to be predictable, they must be determined by rules fixed independently of the concrete circumstances which can be neither foreseen nor taken into account beforehand; and the particular effects of such actions will be unpredictable. If, on the other hand, the state were to direct the individual’s actions so as the achieve particular ends, its actions would have to be decided on the basis of the full circumstances of the moment and would therefore be unpredictable. Hence the familiar fact that the more the state “plans”, the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”

Hayek's entire argument in that book is that central planning allows for strong favoritism towards those in power and with access to those in power. He specifically mentions that some industries need heavy regulation and moderation - but under set rules with choice being supreme as much as possible.

Kirman focusing on the fact Hayek is "horrid" is telling at a time when half of Europe was engaged in genocide and mass colonialism.

That said - Kirman benefits from saying these things in his career and so he will say them. It fits with behavioral economics models.

Interesting talk. But I wonder, can evolutionary economics tell us anything we don't already know?

For instance, the theory that guys buy fancy cars to get chicks is not, in most circles, particularly controversial or enlightening. Can we make useful predictions?