Game theory and cooperation from economics to evolutionary biology
Research Project
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01.09.2010
- 31.08.2012
Explaining cooperative behaviour is a problem for evolutionary theory: although cooperation reduces the relative fitness of the performer it is in evidence at all levels of biological ofganization, from genes cooperating to make up the genome to complex animal societies. This project aims at studying cooperation using game theory and ideas initially developed in economics to analyse strategic behavior. It is by its nature interdisciplinary because it uses models (the volunteer's dilemma, adverse selection, moral hazard, ultimatum game) first developed in economics and in the social sciences to address a long-standing problem in evolutionary game theory; at the same time it uses concepts from evolutionary theory (population dynamics, relative fitness) to add details and address problems that are still unsolved in the social sciences. The project is mainly theoretical, but it includes an experimental part.
