Peter Hammerstein: Economics and evolution
Main content
Decision theory and the crossfertilisation
between economics and evolutionary biology
With Gaute Torsvik
Wednesday 21 October 19:00
Auditorium Egget, Student centre, Parkv 1, Nygårdshøyden
Hammerstein combines experimental economy, evolutionary theory, and human behaviour. He has for example tested to what degree human particpants in an economic game are willing to cooperate, even when the participants do not know each other. His results break down the preconception that all participants in economic games act rationally. In contrast, he shows how cooperation, and not egoism, is typical for the human species.
Peter Hammerstein is Professor at the Department of Theoretical Biology at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.
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Gaute Torsvik is Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Bergen. In addition to his academic publications on incentives in economics and politics, he has authored the book Human nature and the structure of societies: A critical introduction to the theory of economics [In Norwegian] (2003).
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