The Promises of a Naturalistic Approach: How Cultural Evolution Theory Can Inform (Evolutionary) Economics

Christian Cordes

No 1901, Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation from University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics

Abstract: Humans are an ecologically extremely successful species. Underlying this achievement is our evolved unique adaptation for culture. Moreover, humans' cultural capacity initiated a process of gene-culture coevolution that lead to a plethora of behavioral and cognitive dispositions on which cultural adaptation to challenging environments via cultural evolution rests. These characteristics of human cognition are highly relevant to any discipline dealing with human behavior. This article presents these outcomes of human phylogeny and discusses this naturalistic perspective's implications for (evolutionary) economics. Moreover, some fruitful applications of cultural evolution theory to the explanation of economic phenomena are provided.

Keywords: Economic theory development; Cultural evolution theory; Learning mechanisms; Human behavior in economic contexts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 B41 B52 D00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2019-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 29(4), pp.1241-1262

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https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/bitstream/elib/3570/1/00107727-1.pdf

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Journal Article: The promises of a naturalistic approach: how cultural evolution theory can inform (evolutionary) economics (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:atv:wpaper:1901

DOI: 10.26092/elib/208

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