"A theoretical investigation of the evolutionary dynamics of institutional rules"Perret, CedricInstitutional rules, or institutions, are devised rules which incentivize or constrain individual behaviours. They play a crucial role whether it is to foster cooperation, manage common goods, or regulate economy. Despite their importance, how institutions change with time have been proven hard to describe. In particular, it is not clear if institutions can adapt through an evolutionary process as institutions do not evolve per se. Instead, changes in institutions result from (i) changes in individual opinions, which are then (ii) aggregated during collective (or not) decisions. So far, a model that describes when selection on individuals and their opinions translates into improvements of institutions has been lacking. To fill this gap, we build upon previous evolutionary models where individuals design institutions, which then affect their success. In our model, individuals can differ in how much they influence the group decisions. Analysing this model, we obtain a simple formula that describes how group size and political organisation—specifically, how influence is distributed—affects the rate of evolution of institutions. Our results show that democratic groups can quickly reach a critical group size where selection no longer works. On the other side, institutions in authoritarian groups adapt much faster but, in these groups, odd cultural preferences can arise, be maintained and even be positively selected. |
« back