Investors and Exploiters in Ecology and Economics: Principles and Applications
Luc-Alain Giraldeau, Philipp Heeb, and Michael Kosfeld
Abstract
In the natural world, some agents (investors) employ strategies that provide resources, services, or information while others (exploiters) achieve gain through these efforts. Such behavior coexists and is observable in many species at many levels: from bacteria which depend on the existence of biofilms to synthesize constituent proteins; to cancerous cells which employ angiogenesis in tumors; to parents who forego vaccinating their children yet benefit from herd immunity; to countries’ actions in the handling of greenhouse gases. To analyze such behavior, two independent research traditions ha ... More
In the natural world, some agents (investors) employ strategies that provide resources, services, or information while others (exploiters) achieve gain through these efforts. Such behavior coexists and is observable in many species at many levels: from bacteria which depend on the existence of biofilms to synthesize constituent proteins; to cancerous cells which employ angiogenesis in tumors; to parents who forego vaccinating their children yet benefit from herd immunity; to countries’ actions in the handling of greenhouse gases. To analyze such behavior, two independent research traditions have developed in parallel—one couched in evolutionary theory championed by behavioral ecologists, the other in the social sciences advocated by economists. This book looks for commonalities in understanding and approach, in an effort to spur research into this widespread phenomenon.
Keywords:
Strüngmann Forum Reports,
economics,
evolutionary biology,
behavioral ecology,
public health,
anthropology,
exploitation,
investment,
free riding,
cooperation
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780262036122 |
| Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: May 2018 |
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262036122.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Luc-Alain Giraldeau, editor
Université du Québec á Montréal
Philipp Heeb, editor
Centre national de la Recherche scientifiques
Michael Kosfeld, editor
Goethe University Frankfurt
More
Less
