Overview
Spontaneous Order brings together Peyton Young's research on evolutionary game theory and its diverse applications across a wide range of academic disciplines, including economics, sociology, philosophy, biology, computer science, and engineering. Enhanced with an introductory essay and commentaries, the book pulls together the author's work thematically to provide a valuable resource for scholars of economic theory. Young argues that equilibrium behaviors often coalesce from the interactions and experiences of many dispersed individuals acting with fragmentary knowledge of the world, rather than (as is often assumed in economics) from the actions of fully rational agents with commonly held beliefs. The author presents a unified and rigorous account of how such 'bottom-up' evolutionary processes work, using recent advances in stochastic dynamical systems theory. This analytical framework illuminates how social norms and institutions evolve, how social and technical innovations spread in society, and how these processes depend on adaptive learning behavior by human subjects.
Full Product Details
Author: H. Peyton Young
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 16.50cm
, Height: 3.00cm
, Length: 24.00cm
Weight: 0.754kg
ISBN: 9780198892908
ISBN 10: 019889290
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 10 October 2024
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
This volume weaves the author's papers together, with new commentary and perspective, into a coherent whole that well exceeds the sum of its parts. The relevant audience is broad, as is the range of questions and techniques that appear in the volume. This is must reading, from a pioneer and leading contributor to the field, for anyone interested in the emergence of cooperation, social norms, and institutions. * Larry Samuelson, A. Douglas Melamed Professor of Economics, Yale University * The question of how meaningful patterns of collective behavior-in a word 'order'-emerges out of the mess of uncoordinated individual beliefs, preferences, and information, lies at the heart of social science; and nobody has thought about this question more deeply than Peyton Young. In this one volume he has distilled decades of insights, bending rigorous mathematical models with simulations, experiments, and field data. The result will challenge and inspire students and experts alike. * Duncan Watts, Stevens University and Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, University of Pennsylvania * These essays are fundamental contributions to the theory of the dynamics underlying the emergence of Social Norms. They are essential for anyone in the field. * Brian Skyrms, author of The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure *
Author Information
H. Peyton Young is James Meade Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He has published widely in economics, game theory, political representation, finance, and mathematics and is particularly well-known for his research on evolutionary game theory and its application to the evolution of social norms and institutions. He has also made notable contributions to the theory of distributive justice and its applications to political representation and the allocation of common resources. A Fellow of the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, Peyton Young is also a former President of the Game Theory Society.
