Rationality, Evolution, and Acquisitiveness

Harold Demsetz

Economic Inquiry, 1996, vol. 34, issue 3, 484-95

Abstract: The first part of this paper discusses Armen Alchian's classic 1950 article 'Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory' and argues against the notion that it is easy to eliminate rationality from economic behavior by appealing to evolution as a substitute. The second section discusses rationality and develops a specific meaning for this term that distinguishes it from the axioms of choice found in economic theory. In the final section, the author uses this definition and links rationality to a behavioral propensity almost unique to the human species--acquisitiveness--and concludes from this linkage that acquisitiveness can speed up the evolution of intelligence. Copyright 1996 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1996
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