On the Evolution of Attitudes Towards Risk in Winner-Take-All Games

Eddie Dekel () and Suzanne Scotchmer ()

Working Papers from Tel Aviv

Abstract: A long-standing conjecture is that winner-take-all games such as patent races lead to the survival of risk-takers and the extinction of risk-averters. In many species a winner-take-all game determines the males' right to reproduce, and the same argument suggests that males will evolve to be risk-takers. Psychological and sociological evidence buttresses the argument that males are more risk-taking than females. Using an evolutionary model of preference-formation, we investigate to what extent evolution leads to risk-taking in winner-take-all environments.

Keywords: GAME THEORY; BEHAVIOUR; RISK (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
View citations in EconPapers

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: On the Evolution of Attitudes towards Risk in Winner-Take-All Games (1999)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fth:teavfo:4-99

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Tel Aviv
Address: Israel TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY, THE FOERDER INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH, RAMAT AVIV 69 978 TEL AVIV ISRAEL.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Thomas Krichel ().