Santa Fe Institute Events Wiki - User contributions [en]

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-18T03:37:53Z

Andybell:

'''Bold text''''''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alejandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm
* Elizabeth Mullane

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

Zooming in: Economists and other practitioners of game theory generally represent variation in insitutions as different modifications of the payoff structure of a specific game. They have been successful in understanding the impact of different institutions on equilbrium game behavior when institutions are imposed exogenously by nature, the gods, or the central planner. But there have only been a few early attempts at modeling the endogenous evolution of institutions guided by the motivated actions of the agents themselves. We propose to do just this with a specific problem (e.g. commons management), hoping to develop a formal framework that may be then generalizable to other problems.

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices regarding both how to behave toward each other in the current period, as well as
the institutions under which they carry out this behavior.

This could occur in an alternating fashion: within an institutional period players how to behave towards each other; between institutional periods players decide which institution(s) to pass on to the next generation. There may be other ways to go about this.

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y)?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

=Brain-storming model structure=

==model 1==
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

==model 2==

(this is possibly just a different discussion of the same model)

* a small set of m state variables - water, guns, food, whatever
* a set of n institutions that govern these state variables, of the norm and rule format (making this set is a tricky bit)
** n > m so that there is overlap/conflict among different institutions for governance of the same state variable
* a population of agents that are guided by a subset of these institutions (this subset is possibly parameterized by "memory")
* stressing events on the state variable that draw out different institutions
* some kind of network structure among agents to govern their interactions

The question over time then might be what makes different belief systems (which here are subsets of the institutional set shared by groups of agents) stable or persistent over time.

What is obviously missing from this summary is a description of what the institutions are, what the set needs to include, etc., and i think this is informed partly by some of the other discussion that simon and rafal have posted.

is this structurally too complicated?

= Notes and thoughts =

Paul: Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.). I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
*Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
*If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
The source of new institutions:
* Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
* OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

Paul:
I definitely favor throwing out the government and allowing the agents to endogenously determine their own institutions. An amazing transition to show would be when the agents elect to '''create''' a government, and this might ultimately be within the scope of a model of this type.

One important issue that is not yet clear to me is how new institutions should 'arrive'. Does it have to invade, with agents adopting it one at a time, or does it get applied to everyone all at once (maybe after some collective voting process)?

I think we might want to start (like Ostrom does with the PD) with a specific game (the institutionless starting point), and think through how we could formally operationalize a few institutions that might change the payoff structure of the base game. [Andrew proposed a commons-management game, which I think is a great idea.] We can mine the existing literature for possible insitutions, and translate them into the same language (define their place in them in multi-dimensional institution-space).

After we've got this down, we can see whether novel institutions could be generated and introduced, maybe using random assignment of the key variables that define the institution. Once we've done with with one base game, maybe we could do it with another, and maybe, just maybe, be able to throw nearly any base game into the model and see what institutions agents come up with.

Institutions must meet some plausibility constraints: e.g. enforcement must be financed in some way, agents cannot simply choose to pump up the subjective rewards (delta oi in Crawford-Ostrom grammar) for any old behavior. Defining the form of these (exogenous) contraints will be a key contribution of the model.

= Readings =

'''Axelrod 1986''' [[media:179_Axe_evo.pdf | An evolutionary approach to norms]]

'''Crawford and Ostrom 1995''' [[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

Paul: I really favor this approach. It gives us a basic structure by which we can associate rewards/punishments with specific actions undertaken by the agents.

'''Sabatier 1991''' [[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

'''Finnemore and Sikkink 1998''' [[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

'''Berkes 2006''' [[media: berkes2006.pdf | From Community-Based Resource Management to Complex Systems: The Scale Issue and Marine Commons]]

A contrast of a few case studies in local marine fisheries as well as international fisheries. One of the points made is that local commons management and international commons management are fundamentally different - at the local level we can expect norms to emerge that lead to stable management, whereas at the international level the added complexity leads us to expect resilience over regime change, rather than stability

'''Ostrom 2000''' [[media: ostrom2000.pdf | Collective Action and the Evolution of Social norms ]]

At the risk of being Ostrom-heavy, this has a ton of gems in it, including an 8-point scheme for effective self-governance systems

'''Cardenas and Ostrom 2004''' [[media: cardenas2004.pdf | What do people bring into the game? Experiments in the field about cooperation in the commons ]]

Some field experiments highlighting some of the theoretical points in Ostrom 2000

'''Singleton 1999''' [[media: singleton1999.pdf | Commons Problems, Collective Action and Efficiency: Past and Present Institutions of Governance in Pacific Northwest Salmon Fisheries ]]

A contrast between pre-contact first nations management of salmon fisheries and modern state-first nations co-management, from an institutions perspective

'''Faysse 2005''' [[media: Faysse_2005.pdf | Coping with the Tragedy of the Commons: Game Structure and Design of Rules]]

A review paper that outlines prior CPR studies and presents room for future research (and we are covering most of those recommendations!).

'''Apesteguia 2006''' [[Media:Apesteguia 2006.pdf | Does Information Matter in the Commons?]]
This paper presents experimental evidence to determine if there is a disjunct between CPR games with known payoffs and real world CPR situations with imprecise payoff data.
----

Andrew: I've ordered an older (1987) book by Taylor that Ostrom cites as exploring the different kinds of games that can be applied to collective action problems: [[http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0521339901/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-9858211-8815341#reader-link The Possibility of Cooperation ]]. I think it might help us think about the structure of the n-player game occurring in the resource arena
----

Paul: The following is a scrap from a somewhat recent paper by folks from my group. It's a complicated case to consider representing more formally, but gives some contextual insight into how this stuff might play out in the real world:

Imagine the following scenario. A woman returns from collecting berries and pounding
palm fiber with a bawling infant. A wingless wasp stung her baby while she had put him down to
pound the fiber, and is in great pain. She is frustrated and says to the other women in camp,
“This is crazy for me to go out and pound fiber when I have such a young baby. I would gladly
work twice as hard when he is a little older if I could concentrate on watching him now.” A few
days later when the wound is infected and the child has a fever, another woman, remembering
a similar incident she experienced a few years ago, says, “You know, Singing Deer is right. We
should work hard when we have no baby on the breast and allow those with a young one to
care for it well.” Another woman, who has had no child in the last 10 years, says, “Why should
we work to feed other people’s babies? If you have a baby, you must feed it.” Other men and
women consider their own situation and the situation of their children and present their opinions.
Eventually a consensus (or at least, an agreement) is reached, with those in the minority either
agreeing to go along with the new norm or leaving to live with less foolish people. However, one
woman, who is not nursing, hardly pounds fiber at all. Other women begin to gossip about her,
remarking upon how lazy she is, because she has no child to care for. She notices that the
shares she receives in food distributions start to become less generous and begins to suspect
that others are talking about her behind her back. She leaves and pounds a large quantity of fiber,
which she shares generously. She can feel the warmth return and has learned her lesson.

We consider another similar scenario. A fifty year old man exclaims, “Look at these lazy
young men! They come back to camp at mid-day and play around. Here I am, and here you and
you are with lots of children to feed and no food to give them. What will those boys do when
they have big families to feed.” An age-mate agrees, adding “How do I know if that lazy one is
good enough for my daughter? How do I know if he will get enough food to keep her children
healthy? He should come to my fire and bring me lots of meat, then I will know.” The young
men are not so enthusiastic, because they do not like hunting all day long, but they are reluctant
to anger the men whose daughters they favor. One young man, who is a good hunter for his
age, thinking that he could take advantage of such a system, starts to hunt longer hours, giving
the older men generous shares. The other young men, afraid of being outdone, also begin to
hunt longer hours, sharing the fruits of their labor.

While admittedly hackneyed, these scenarios are meant to reflect the ongoing
discussions and commentaries about sharing, work effort and laziness that are so pervasive in
foraging societies. We do not mean to suggest that all social norms are explicitly negotiated
with words or that norms solidify over a short period as a result of a few conversations. In some
circumstances, lack of compliance and ‘voting with one’s feet’ are almost surely involved in
those negotiations. In fact, we know virtually nothing about how standards for appropriate
behavior emerge and change in small-scale societies without official means of enforcement. It is
likely that majority-rule voting arrangements are not adhered to, in the strict sense, since some
individuals exercise undue influence [e.g. kombeti among Aka, kapita among Efe (Hewlett and
Walker 1990), Mbuti, chiefs among Yuqui (Stearman 1989)]. Nevertheless, we propose that
such multi-individual negotiations, partly verbal and partly nonverbal, do result in social norms
and that the weight of opinion, based upon the individual costs and benefits of norms in given
contexts, determines accepted patterns of behavior.'' [http://www.unm.edu/~hebs/pubs/KaplanGurven_2001_FoodSharing.pdf]

= Focused Research Question =

Andrew: My take is this - given ecological constraints, what types of conditions seem to lead groups to better outcomes?

we will construct a model that treats agents as a set of binary traits. each trait has its own payoff, which in turn can be tied to other traits as well as the number of agents using them. we can interpret the traits as behaviors, and the set of traits with the highest overall payoff can be thought of as the best use of resources (or something like that). we can look at what causes particular behaviors to be stable over time, etc.

this model requires a basic structure to represent the ecology and the payoffs, and then some other structure on top in order to represent interactions, disturbances, etc.

im attaching a short m-file that i think captures the spirit of the basic structure, if not the detail. the 'rules' i have constructed are more designed to be elegant in code than useful. the interactions i have set up have no real structure. thusly, the model doesnt have much in the way of interesting dynamics. in it, each agent has a particular payoff that is calculated for their set of traits. they each pick another agent at random and if the other agent has a higher payoff, they adopt a few traits at random. the model converges nicely and quickly to an optimum. if you make the slight modification so that agents exchange traits REGARDLESS of the payoff, you get a nice random walk in the aggregate payoff. basically, a more meaningful model would put us somewhere between these two. at any rate, i thought it might be nice to get something down in code as a conversation piece.

you will have to rename this file to 'cohesion.m'; the wiki was being a wanker about the .m extension -- [[media: RenameToMFile.pdf | First Try]]

File:RenameToMFile.pdf

2007-06-18T03:36:28Z

Andybell:

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-18T03:34:16Z

Andybell:

'''Bold text''''''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alejandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm
* Elizabeth Mullane

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

Zooming in: Economists and other practitioners of game theory generally represent variation in insitutions as different modifications of the payoff structure of a specific game. They have been successful in understanding the impact of different institutions on equilbrium game behavior when institutions are imposed exogenously by nature, the gods, or the central planner. But there have only been a few early attempts at modeling the endogenous evolution of institutions guided by the motivated actions of the agents themselves. We propose to do just this with a specific problem (e.g. commons management), hoping to develop a formal framework that may be then generalizable to other problems.

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices regarding both how to behave toward each other in the current period, as well as
the institutions under which they carry out this behavior.

This could occur in an alternating fashion: within an institutional period players how to behave towards each other; between institutional periods players decide which institution(s) to pass on to the next generation. There may be other ways to go about this.

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y)?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

=Brain-storming model structure=

==model 1==
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

==model 2==

(this is possibly just a different discussion of the same model)

* a small set of m state variables - water, guns, food, whatever
* a set of n institutions that govern these state variables, of the norm and rule format (making this set is a tricky bit)
** n > m so that there is overlap/conflict among different institutions for governance of the same state variable
* a population of agents that are guided by a subset of these institutions (this subset is possibly parameterized by "memory")
* stressing events on the state variable that draw out different institutions
* some kind of network structure among agents to govern their interactions

The question over time then might be what makes different belief systems (which here are subsets of the institutional set shared by groups of agents) stable or persistent over time.

What is obviously missing from this summary is a description of what the institutions are, what the set needs to include, etc., and i think this is informed partly by some of the other discussion that simon and rafal have posted.

is this structurally too complicated?

= Notes and thoughts =

Paul: Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.). I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
*Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
*If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
The source of new institutions:
* Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
* OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

Paul:
I definitely favor throwing out the government and allowing the agents to endogenously determine their own institutions. An amazing transition to show would be when the agents elect to '''create''' a government, and this might ultimately be within the scope of a model of this type.

One important issue that is not yet clear to me is how new institutions should 'arrive'. Does it have to invade, with agents adopting it one at a time, or does it get applied to everyone all at once (maybe after some collective voting process)?

I think we might want to start (like Ostrom does with the PD) with a specific game (the institutionless starting point), and think through how we could formally operationalize a few institutions that might change the payoff structure of the base game. [Andrew proposed a commons-management game, which I think is a great idea.] We can mine the existing literature for possible insitutions, and translate them into the same language (define their place in them in multi-dimensional institution-space).

After we've got this down, we can see whether novel institutions could be generated and introduced, maybe using random assignment of the key variables that define the institution. Once we've done with with one base game, maybe we could do it with another, and maybe, just maybe, be able to throw nearly any base game into the model and see what institutions agents come up with.

Institutions must meet some plausibility constraints: e.g. enforcement must be financed in some way, agents cannot simply choose to pump up the subjective rewards (delta oi in Crawford-Ostrom grammar) for any old behavior. Defining the form of these (exogenous) contraints will be a key contribution of the model.

= Readings =

'''Axelrod 1986''' [[media:179_Axe_evo.pdf | An evolutionary approach to norms]]

'''Crawford and Ostrom 1995''' [[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

Paul: I really favor this approach. It gives us a basic structure by which we can associate rewards/punishments with specific actions undertaken by the agents.

'''Sabatier 1991''' [[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

'''Finnemore and Sikkink 1998''' [[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

'''Berkes 2006''' [[media: berkes2006.pdf | From Community-Based Resource Management to Complex Systems: The Scale Issue and Marine Commons]]

A contrast of a few case studies in local marine fisheries as well as international fisheries. One of the points made is that local commons management and international commons management are fundamentally different - at the local level we can expect norms to emerge that lead to stable management, whereas at the international level the added complexity leads us to expect resilience over regime change, rather than stability

'''Ostrom 2000''' [[media: ostrom2000.pdf | Collective Action and the Evolution of Social norms ]]

At the risk of being Ostrom-heavy, this has a ton of gems in it, including an 8-point scheme for effective self-governance systems

'''Cardenas and Ostrom 2004''' [[media: cardenas2004.pdf | What do people bring into the game? Experiments in the field about cooperation in the commons ]]

Some field experiments highlighting some of the theoretical points in Ostrom 2000

'''Singleton 1999''' [[media: singleton1999.pdf | Commons Problems, Collective Action and Efficiency: Past and Present Institutions of Governance in Pacific Northwest Salmon Fisheries ]]

A contrast between pre-contact first nations management of salmon fisheries and modern state-first nations co-management, from an institutions perspective

'''Faysse 2005''' [[media: Faysse_2005.pdf | Coping with the Tragedy of the Commons: Game Structure and Design of Rules]]

A review paper that outlines prior CPR studies and presents room for future research (and we are covering most of those recommendations!).

'''Apesteguia 2006''' [[Media:Apesteguia 2006.pdf | Does Information Matter in the Commons?]]
This paper presents experimental evidence to determine if there is a disjunct between CPR games with known payoffs and real world CPR situations with imprecise payoff data.
----

Andrew: I've ordered an older (1987) book by Taylor that Ostrom cites as exploring the different kinds of games that can be applied to collective action problems: [[http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0521339901/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-9858211-8815341#reader-link The Possibility of Cooperation ]]. I think it might help us think about the structure of the n-player game occurring in the resource arena
----

Paul: The following is a scrap from a somewhat recent paper by folks from my group. It's a complicated case to consider representing more formally, but gives some contextual insight into how this stuff might play out in the real world:

Imagine the following scenario. A woman returns from collecting berries and pounding
palm fiber with a bawling infant. A wingless wasp stung her baby while she had put him down to
pound the fiber, and is in great pain. She is frustrated and says to the other women in camp,
“This is crazy for me to go out and pound fiber when I have such a young baby. I would gladly
work twice as hard when he is a little older if I could concentrate on watching him now.” A few
days later when the wound is infected and the child has a fever, another woman, remembering
a similar incident she experienced a few years ago, says, “You know, Singing Deer is right. We
should work hard when we have no baby on the breast and allow those with a young one to
care for it well.” Another woman, who has had no child in the last 10 years, says, “Why should
we work to feed other people’s babies? If you have a baby, you must feed it.” Other men and
women consider their own situation and the situation of their children and present their opinions.
Eventually a consensus (or at least, an agreement) is reached, with those in the minority either
agreeing to go along with the new norm or leaving to live with less foolish people. However, one
woman, who is not nursing, hardly pounds fiber at all. Other women begin to gossip about her,
remarking upon how lazy she is, because she has no child to care for. She notices that the
shares she receives in food distributions start to become less generous and begins to suspect
that others are talking about her behind her back. She leaves and pounds a large quantity of fiber,
which she shares generously. She can feel the warmth return and has learned her lesson.

We consider another similar scenario. A fifty year old man exclaims, “Look at these lazy
young men! They come back to camp at mid-day and play around. Here I am, and here you and
you are with lots of children to feed and no food to give them. What will those boys do when
they have big families to feed.” An age-mate agrees, adding “How do I know if that lazy one is
good enough for my daughter? How do I know if he will get enough food to keep her children
healthy? He should come to my fire and bring me lots of meat, then I will know.” The young
men are not so enthusiastic, because they do not like hunting all day long, but they are reluctant
to anger the men whose daughters they favor. One young man, who is a good hunter for his
age, thinking that he could take advantage of such a system, starts to hunt longer hours, giving
the older men generous shares. The other young men, afraid of being outdone, also begin to
hunt longer hours, sharing the fruits of their labor.

While admittedly hackneyed, these scenarios are meant to reflect the ongoing
discussions and commentaries about sharing, work effort and laziness that are so pervasive in
foraging societies. We do not mean to suggest that all social norms are explicitly negotiated
with words or that norms solidify over a short period as a result of a few conversations. In some
circumstances, lack of compliance and ‘voting with one’s feet’ are almost surely involved in
those negotiations. In fact, we know virtually nothing about how standards for appropriate
behavior emerge and change in small-scale societies without official means of enforcement. It is
likely that majority-rule voting arrangements are not adhered to, in the strict sense, since some
individuals exercise undue influence [e.g. kombeti among Aka, kapita among Efe (Hewlett and
Walker 1990), Mbuti, chiefs among Yuqui (Stearman 1989)]. Nevertheless, we propose that
such multi-individual negotiations, partly verbal and partly nonverbal, do result in social norms
and that the weight of opinion, based upon the individual costs and benefits of norms in given
contexts, determines accepted patterns of behavior.'' [http://www.unm.edu/~hebs/pubs/KaplanGurven_2001_FoodSharing.pdf]

= Focused Research Question =

Andrew: My take is this - given ecological constraints, what types of conditions seem to lead groups to better outcomes?

we will construct a model that treats agents as a set of binary traits. each trait has its own payoff, which in turn can be tied to other traits as well as the number of agents using them. we can interpret the traits as behaviors, and the set of traits with the highest overall payoff can be thought of as the best use of resources (or something like that). we can look at what causes particular behaviors to be stable over time, etc.

this model requires a basic structure to represent the ecology and the payoffs, and then some other structure on top in order to represent interactions, disturbances, etc.

im attaching a short m-file that i think captures the spirit of the basic structure, if not the detail. the 'rules' i have constructed are more designed to be elegant in code than useful. the interactions i have set up have no real structure. thusly, the model doesnt have much in the way of interesting dynamics. in it, each agent has a particular payoff that is calculated for their set of traits. they each pick another agent at random and if the other agent has a higher payoff, they adopt a few traits at random. the model converges nicely and quickly to an optimum. if you make the slight modification so that agents exchange traits REGARDLESS of the payoff, you get a nice random walk in the aggregate payoff. basically, a more meaningful model would put us somewhere between these two. at any rate, i thought it might be nice to get something down in code as a conversation piece.

Actually, this wiki is being a wanker about the .m extension so i am including the text below (it isn't too long, just paste it into an m-file)

function cohesion()
figure;
nTraits = 70;
nRules = 40;
nAgents = 200;
nSteps = 100;
fThreshold = 0.1;

ruleCoeff = cell(nRules,1);
ruleSum = zeros(nRules,1);
agentSum = zeros(nRules,nAgents);
conditionMet = zeros(nRules, nAgents);

%in my simple payoff model, set up payoffs related to the state of each
%trait (1 or 0) and a set of payoffs related to whether the rules are met
traitPayoff = rand(nTraits,2);
conditionPayoff = rand(nRules,2)*2;

traitPayoffMat0 = traitPayoff(:,1)*ones(1,nAgents);
traitPayoffMat1 = traitPayoff(:,2)*ones(1,nAgents);

conditionPayoffMat0 = conditionPayoff(:,1)*ones(1,nAgents);
conditionPayoffMat1 = conditionPayoff(:,2)*ones(1,nAgents);

%make up the rules. each rule is basically a set of 'and' or 'or'
%requirements. ie, "trait 4 requires traits 2,6; and trait 5 requires
%trait 1" (an 'and' rule), or "either trait 5 also has trait 4, or trait 6
%also has one of traits 1, 2, or 3" (an 'or' trait). these can also be
%modified by 'not'. this isnt a good way to do things. it is just easy to
%code. the value fThreshold basically defines how dense each rule is - at
%0.1 it generally has one or two requirements.

for i = 1:nRules
ruleCoeff{i} = sparse(rand(nTraits,nTraits)< fThreshold).*~eye(nTraits,nTraits);
ruleSum(i) = sum(sum(ruleCoeff{i}));
end
ruleAndOr = sparse(rand(nRules,1) < 0.5);
ruleNot = sparse(rand(nRules,1) < 0.5);

ruleSumMat = ruleSum*ones(1,nAgents);
ruleAndOrMat = ruleAndOr*ones(1,nAgents);
ruleNotMat = ruleNot*ones(1,nAgents);

agentMatrix = sparse(rand(nTraits,nAgents) < 0.5);

for t = 1:nSteps
for i = 1:nRules
agentSum(i,:) = full(sum(ruleCoeff{i}*agentMatrix));
end

conditionMet = (agentSum == ruleSumMat).*ruleAndOrMat.*ruleNotMat + (agentSum > 0).*(~ruleAndOrMat).*ruleNotMat;

Payoff = sum(conditionMet.*conditionPayoffMat1 + ~conditionMet.*conditionPayoffMat0);
Payoff = Payoff.*sum(agentMatrix.*traitPayoffMat1 + ~agentMatrix.*traitPayoffMat0);

%interactions - basically each agent picks another at random and checks
%their score. if it is higher than theirs, then they adopt a few traits
for currentAgent = 1:nAgents
otherAgent = currentAgent;
while (otherAgent == currentAgent)
otherAgent = ceil(rand*nAgents);
end
if(Payoff(currentAgent) < Payoff(otherAgent))
nAdoptTraits = ceil(rand*nTraits);
traitOrder = randperm(nTraits);
agentMatrix(traitOrder(1:nAdoptTraits),currentAgent) = agentMatrix(traitOrder(1:nAdoptTraits),otherAgent);
end

end

subplot(1,2,1);
imagesc(agentMatrix);
subplot(1,2,2);
plot(t, sum(Payoff), 'o-');
hold on;
pause(0.1);

end

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-18T03:31:47Z

Andybell:

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-18T03:26:55Z

Andybell:

CSSS 2007 Santa Fe-After Hours

2007-06-13T23:48:59Z

Andybell:

{{CSSS 2007 Santa Fe}}

==Anyone for Bridge?==
* I realise this may be betraying my inner geek a little too much, but I was just wondering if anyone at the school was interested in getting together for a bit of just-for-fun bridge? If enough people are interested, then maybe we could organise a regular evening while we're here. It's a great game and should appeal to all complexity students! (9 out of 10 Grandmothers can't be wrong......!) Any takers, just get in touch with me! [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Kernuack Hannah]]
You are a geek. I like playing 500. I would be up for learning Bridge if people are patient. [Ryan]

Have to admit that I played some bridge a loooong time ago... forgotten most about it by now though. But I'm willing to give it a shot (hope for your own sake that you're better in bridge than in pool Hannah ;D) [Johan]

its time to face facts: we all are geeks (you too have been tainted with this brush ryan!) and should be wallowing in it. can this session be titled "everything you ever wanted to know about bridge but were too afraid to ask?" if so, I am in [dan]

I'm sure I can manage to articulate the basics to a willing audience ;o) Hannah

- should we try for a further "refinement" on sunday evening? cheese and port?? [dan]

==Monday, June 11==
===7:00 soccer=== perhaps low attendance due to the Matlab tutorial.

==Tuesday, June 12==
===6:30 ultimate=== @ soccer fields

==Wednesday, June 13==
===morning bird/wildlife walk=== Are you getting too much sleep? Do your days feel empty? Join us for a morning bird/wildlife walk. The general plan is to be on the trail by 6:00 am and return before the end of breakfast. If we have enough vehicles, the Audubon center at the end of Upper Canyon Road (just a few minutes' drive, no dogs allowed [http://www.audubon.org/chapter/nm/nm/rdac/audubon_center/rdnature/natural_history.html link]) is probably our best option. If we don't have transportation, we'll just head up the trail near campus. Fred and I both have binoculars that can be shared, but if anyone else has a pair they can lend to the endeavor, that'd be great. I'll post more details as the week progresses and we get a better idea of who's coming. Drop me a line or leave your name below if you're interested. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/James_Battin James]](james.battin at noaa.gov)
===Join us for "Music on the Hill" at St. Johns college from 6-8pm=== for food and drink; this Wed is '''Southwest Jazz Orchestra''' by Big Band Jazz. For more info see, [http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/asp/main.aspx?page=6981 schedule here].
===7:00 soccer===

There is a concert on the soccer fields tonight, so we have to move the game.

The GAME IS ON. We're playing down on the fields by the public school on Camino de Cruz Blanca. Turn left out the front entrance of St. John's and left again. The fields will be on your right. It's a short walk from St. John's.

We'll play from 7:00 till dark, unless everyone goes to Rockmore's lecture.

Ben

===7:00 Getting Older... El Farol....=== the inevitable is looming large & I am once again "getting older". I will be marking expiration of my 30th year with traditional comiseratory drinks at el foral & all and sundry are welcome to chastise and deride. it will be a great night!! will be leaving st johns around 7, love to see you there, cheers,

old man dan

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but I think it is actually the end of your 31st year... I will be there to celebrate.

Ryan.

I can drive revelers over to the bar from Dan Rockmore's lecture - do you think you will still be there around 9:30 or 10P?? --Mollie

Actually I am planning on making Dan R's lecture too so I plan to be at El Farol from 9pm-ish onwards - of course, roll down for a drink beforehand if you want too!! cheers

dan (l)

I'll see if I can rally the soccer guys to head out after our game. --Ben

==Thursday, June 14==
===Food and drink at "Cowgirls" on Guadalupe from 6-?===
===6:30 ultimate @ soccer fields===

==Saturday, June 16==
===Climbing excursion=== We'll be going back to [[http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/9507/lasconchas.htm Las Conchas]] or in the Sandias doing some trad/gear routes. Vikas, Josh, Kath, Olaf, Andy (?), elise (if there is space)

===Bandelier Nat'l Monument/Frijoles Canyon Trail/Los Alamos=== Anyone interested in hiking the frijoles canyon trail to the bandelier nat'l monument? The monument is a group of ancient ruins/caves/etc and supposed to be beautiful (and a quick drive). The Frijoles Canyon Trail is an "easy walk" to the ruins. It's also really close to Los Alamos... Heather (hbeil at email.unc.edu).

I'm interested. Monika (monika at mimuw.edu.pl)

Me too. Mike W.

Sounds like a nice trip, I'll join you :-) /Johan

==june 16 or 17==
saturday, june 16 or sunday, june 17, whitewater rafting in the [http://www.farflung.com/new/box1.html taos box canyon], $118 per person, need six people to guarantee a paddle raft + somebody with a second car
[[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Rafal_Raciborski rafal]]

I'm in. Monika

==june 16/17 - Overnight Hike Moved==

Andrew - perhaps its better to put some more thought into this and do it the following weekend - June 23/24

==Wednesday, June 20==
* Join us for "Music on the Hill" at St. Johns college from 6-8pm for food and drink; this Wed is "Ali Ryerson & The John Trentacosta Quintet". For more info see, [http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/asp/main.aspx?page=6981 schedule here].

==Thursday, June 21==
Thursday
The 50th birthday ( Golden JUBILEE _!!! ) of one of the CSSS'ers is falling on this date. Guess who ?
Any ideas about a birthday cake, etc ?
: How about we celebrate at "Cowgirls" w/ a cake, music, food and drink. --[[User:Luciano Oviedo|Luciano Oviedo]] 21:57, 10 June 2007 (MDT)

==june 23==
saturday, june 23, [http://rodeodesantafe.org/ santa fe rodeo], 7pm show, $32 per person.
[[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Rafal_Raciborski rafal]]

I would like to join ! Saleha Habibullah ( salehahabibullah@hotmail.com )

* note: this event is now fully booked.

==june 23/24 - Overnight Hike==

Andrew - not sure where to go yet, but it would be fun.

I have a one man tent, would be willing to purchase a 2-man tent if there were others interested in heading out.

I don't think I can go that weekend, but I have a tent that'll fit two people comfortably that I'm happy to lend to anyone who wants to go. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/James_Battin James]]

yeah I could be keen - I haven't got any gear though (aside from boots, pack and water-resistant jacket). will talk turkey during week, dan

perhaps we could find a place to rent tents for the night? -mike

==Wednesday, June 27==
* Join us for "Music on the Hill" at St. Johns college from 6-8pm for food and drink; this Wed is Blues, Soul and R&B by "Cathy McGill & Avatar". For more info see, [http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/asp/main.aspx?page=6981 schedule here].

== cricket anyone? ==
I've been getting some sniffs of interest in the game! I can probably arrange a bat here and we can play tennis ball cricket (I can also offer a tutorial on cricket ;) - for proper leather ball cricket, folks are welcome to practice with the UNM cricket club at Albuquerque coming saturday around noon! (dont worry, it's fun cricket and not professional quality either!), the club (and I) then travel to Colorado for a couple of matches 16/17 June; so if some are interested in a Colorado trip, let me know. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Amitabh_Trehan amitabh]]

Sun, June 10: We had a nice little cricket session at the St. Johns ground today. What about onother one tomorrrow (Mon, Jun 11) sometime. I have some equipment here - bat, pads, stumps, cricket ball and also tennis balls. [[Amitabh Trehan]]
[[Image:Cricket.jpg]]

== Photographers unite! ==
I have met quite a few avid photography enthusiasts here. Let's form a group. NM is a wonderful state for photography, maybe we can plan something! [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Amitabh_Trehan amitabh]]

I'd be happy to point you to some excellent places- we have no shortage here in NM. Lolly lollyb@santafe.edu

I would love to join. The only problem is that I left my camera back home ! HELP ! Saleha Habibullah

Hey, that would be great Lolly !! I'd love to go see some beautiful places ! I'll be writing to you soon :) -- [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Amelie_Veron Amelie]

I'm not much of a photographer yet, but I brought my camera, and I’m always looking for opportunities to practice. -- [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Jose_Delgado jd]

== El Farol and Other Places to Eat ==
Since the [http://www.elfarolsf.com El Farol Restaurant and Bar] has become immortalized in the complexity literature ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Farol_Bar_problem The El Farol Bar Problem]), we should check it out.

BTW, some locals said the El Farol is a tapas bar and not a full restaurant. See below for more places.

How about an outing some evening next week? Thursday or Friday night (14th or 15th)? I'm staying about a block from El Farol, on Acequia Madre... Should we run the NetLogo simulation first? :) [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Mollie_Poynton Mollie].

Some locals told me about a few more great places to eat in town: [http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=20215762 Horseman's Haven] and [http://bobcatbite.com/ Bobcat Bite]. I've also tried The [http://local.yahoo.com/details;_ylt=AiKEjhWdFcvv3xBCmycTIouHNcIF?id=20206492&stx=santa+fe+baking Santa Fe Baking Co] and it was great.

For fine dining [http://www.geronimorestaurant.com/home2.html Geronimo] comes highly recommended.

== mountain biking ==
the dale ball trails starting from the back of st john's provide 22mi+ of what looks like pretty nice trails for biking (& walking!), plus there are many more excellent trails local [http://forums.mtbr.com/forumdisplay.php?s=2e6c56b6542d2b67e39037cc578ead2e&f=91 and otherwise], and there is also a local bus for $2/day to access some of these. I know aussie simon has aquired a trusty steed and I also have a bike arriving so drop me a line if you keen to get amongst it - it is also possible to rent bikes in town, cheers, [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Daniel_lester aussie dan]

- yeeeeah. mike

== Anybody sticking around after the CSSS is over ?==
I (Amelie) plan to stay in the region (NM, Colorado, ..) for a week or so after the school. The best would be to rent a car and visit with somebody from the school .. let me know if you're interested :) --[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Amelie_veron Amelie]

-----

=Moved done stuff to bottom=
==Monday June 4th==
* at 7pm: soccer match @ the athletic field; be there! [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Olaf_Bochmann Olaf]]

* Monday June 4th, 9pm, Polyhmynia 13, Scotch tasting, hosted by Ben Mazzotta

==Wednesday, June 6th==
* 7pm: climbing @ the [http://www.climbsantafe.com/ Santa Fe Climbing Center]; let's meet at the pond in front of the student centre [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Gregor_Obernosterer Gregor]]

==Friday, June 8th==
* 2pm: Excursion to Taos. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Gregor_Obernosterer Gregor]] and [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Tim_Johann T1M]]

--I was up that way today. Took the high road and stopped at Chimayo - I thought the Sanctuaria de Chimayo was very, very cool. It is open 9A-6P each day. A little restaurant next door called Oleana's (sp?) serves up homemade tamales until 5P, Thurs-Mon. --Mollie

==Saturday, June 9th==
* some time in the morning: Excursion to southern NM - Socorro and/or White Sands and/or Roswell. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Gregor_Obernosterer Gregor]] and [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Tim_Johann T1M]]

* Climbing excursion: If you're in, contact me at vikas.shah (at) vanderbilt.edu so we can make plans. We'll be at [[http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/9507/lasconchas.htm Las Conchas]] or [[http://www.cs.unm.edu/~moret/crag.html Palomas]]. Let me know which you prefer. I've been to Conchas, fun smaller area with an easy approach. Never been to Palomas, has a substantially longer approach. I have topos available for both; descriptions and some of the routes are described at the links above. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Vikas_Shah Vikas Shah]]
**''Update 6/7 1:30PM :'' My car is full. If anyone else would like to come, we'll have to arrange for another driver to come.
**''Update 6/8 8:50AM :'' There was unfortunately an injury, and one of the people going had to back out. There's room for one more.

==Hike to Nambé Lake, Saturday, June 9th==
Folks: we will hike to Nambé Lake, which is a less-strenuous hike in the same area as Santa Fe Baldy. The guide book says the lake is a “special treat”, and there are apparently lots of wildflowers. It is a 5-hour trip (including lunch stop), 7 miles return. The plan is to meet at 9.30am in the usual spot (same place from where the shuttle buses take us to SFI).

The first ten confirmed people are: me (Ryan), Simon, Mike, Elise, Monika, John, Dan, James, Hannah, Fred…

Please add yourself to this list if you want to come (apologies if you gave me a verbal commitment and I forgot).

John has kindly offered to drive and we will also be renting one car. If you want to come and aren't on the list above, please figure out your own transport arrangements (I think Michigan Will might be driving too).

Please bring: lunch (we can stop at a store in the morning); water (2 litres); a raincoat; a warm jumper; decent footwear; sun protection.

== Sunday, June 10: Join me for Church, 11am ==
I'm planning to go to visit a nearbye [http://www.calvarybaptistsantafe.com Baptist church], all are welcome to come. I will likely ride there. I can arrange another bike, or if we are many, perhaps a car. Please let me know below, or by email if you'd prefer. If you wanted to join me for Bible study on a one-off or weekly basis (this would be sitting round to read a passage of the Bible and discuss it) then let me know (again, by email if you'd prefer). All persuassions and questions welcome! [[Simon_Angus]] (s.angus AT unsw.edu.au)

I'm interested in both, but don't have a bike or car to get to church... how far is it? Heather (hbeil AT email.unc.edu)

==Sunday, June 10 - Hike up Atalaya==
Anyone up for a hike this afternoon? I know a bunch of you are probably hiked out after yesterday's excursion, but if anyone would like to tackle Atalaya this afternoon, there is a group of us leaving around 3pm. We'll meet on the road by the dorms at the top of the hill at 3. Hope to see some of you there! ->Josh

CSSS 2007 Santa Fe-After Hours

2007-06-13T19:15:10Z

Andybell: /* june 16/17 - Overnight Hike */

{{CSSS 2007 Santa Fe}}

==Anyone for Bridge?==
* I realise this may be betraying my inner geek a little too much, but I was just wondering if anyone at the school was interested in getting together for a bit of just-for-fun bridge? If enough people are interested, then maybe we could organise a regular evening while we're here. It's a great game and should appeal to all complexity students! (9 out of 10 Grandmothers can't be wrong......!) Any takers, just get in touch with me! [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Kernuack Hannah]]
You are a geek. I like playing 500. I would be up for learning Bridge if people are patient. [Ryan]

Have to admit that I played some bridge a loooong time ago... forgotten most about it by now though. But I'm willing to give it a shot (hope for your own sake that you're better in bridge than in pool Hannah ;D) [Johan]

its time to face facts: we all are geeks (you too have been tainted with this brush ryan!) and should be wallowing in it. can this session be titled "everything you ever wanted to know about bridge but were too afraid to ask?" if so, I am in [dan]

I'm sure I can manage to articulate the basics to a willing audience ;o) Hannah

- should we try for a further "refinement" on sunday evening? cheese and port?? [dan]

==Monday, June 11==
===7:00 soccer=== perhaps low attendance due to the Matlab tutorial.

==Tuesday, June 12==
===6:30 ultimate=== @ soccer fields

==Wednesday, June 13==
===morning bird/wildlife walk=== Are you getting too much sleep? Do your days feel empty? Join us for a morning bird/wildlife walk. The general plan is to be on the trail by 6:00 am and return before the end of breakfast. If we have enough vehicles, the Audubon center at the end of Upper Canyon Road (just a few minutes' drive, no dogs allowed [http://www.audubon.org/chapter/nm/nm/rdac/audubon_center/rdnature/natural_history.html link]) is probably our best option. If we don't have transportation, we'll just head up the trail near campus. Fred and I both have binoculars that can be shared, but if anyone else has a pair they can lend to the endeavor, that'd be great. I'll post more details as the week progresses and we get a better idea of who's coming. Drop me a line or leave your name below if you're interested. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/James_Battin James]](james.battin at noaa.gov)
===Join us for "Music on the Hill" at St. Johns college from 6-8pm=== for food and drink; this Wed is '''Southwest Jazz Orchestra''' by Big Band Jazz. For more info see, [http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/asp/main.aspx?page=6981 schedule here].
===7:00 soccer===

===7:00 Getting Older... El Farol....=== the inevitable is looming large & I am once again "getting older". I will be marking expiration of my 30th year with traditional comiseratory drinks at el foral & all and sundry are welcome to chastise and deride. it will be a great night!! will be leaving st johns around 7, love to see you there, cheers,

old man dan

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but I think it is actually the end of your 31st year... I will be there to celebrate.

Ryan.

I can drive revelers over to the bar from Dan Rockmore's lecture - do you think you will still be there around 9:30 or 10P?? --Mollie

Actually I am planning on making Dan R's lecture too so I plan to be at El Farol from 9pm-ish onwards - of course, roll down for a drink beforehand if you want too!! cheers

dan (l)

I'll see if I can rally the soccer guys to head out after our game. --Ben

==Thursday, June 14==
===Food and drink at "Cowgirls" on Guadalupe from 6-?===
===6:30 ultimate @ soccer fields===

==Saturday, June 16==
===Climbing excursion=== We'll be going back to [[http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/9507/lasconchas.htm Las Conchas]] or in the Sandias doing some trad/gear routes. Vikas, Josh, Kath, Olaf, Andy (?), elise (if there is space)

===Bandelier Nat'l Monument/Frijoles Canyon Trail/Los Alamos=== Anyone interested in hiking the frijoles canyon trail to the bandelier nat'l monument? The monument is a group of ancient ruins/caves/etc and supposed to be beautiful (and a quick drive). The Frijoles Canyon Trail is an "easy walk" to the ruins. It's also really close to Los Alamos... Heather (hbeil at email.unc.edu).

I'm interested. Monika (monika at mimuw.edu.pl)

Me too. Mike W.

==june 16 or 17==
saturday, june 16 or sunday, june 17, whitewater rafting in the [http://www.farflung.com/new/box1.html taos box canyon], $118 per person, need six people to guarantee a paddle raft + somebody with a second car
[[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Rafal_Raciborski rafal]]

I'm in. Monika

==june 16/17 - Overnight Hike==

Andrew - not sure where to go yet, but it would be fun.

I have a one man tent, would be willing to purchase a 2-man tent if there were others interested in heading out.

I don't think I can go that weekend, but I have a tent that'll fit two people comfortably that I'm happy to lend to anyone who wants to go. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/James_Battin James]]

yeah I could be keen - I haven't got any gear though (aside from boots, pack and water-resistant jacket). will talk turkey during week, dan

perhaps we could find a place to rent tents for the night? -mike

Andrew - perhaps its better to put some more thought into this and do it the following weekend - June 23/24

==Wednesday, June 20==
* Join us for "Music on the Hill" at St. Johns college from 6-8pm for food and drink; this Wed is "Ali Ryerson & The John Trentacosta Quintet". For more info see, [http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/asp/main.aspx?page=6981 schedule here].

==Thursday, June 21==
Thursday
The 50th birthday ( Golden JUBILEE _!!! ) of one of the CSSS'ers is falling on this date. Guess who ?
Any ideas about a birthday cake, etc ?
: How about we celebrate at "Cowgirls" w/ a cake, music, food and drink. --[[User:Luciano Oviedo|Luciano Oviedo]] 21:57, 10 June 2007 (MDT)

==june 23==
saturday, june 23, [http://rodeodesantafe.org/ santa fe rodeo], 7pm show, $32 per person.
[[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Rafal_Raciborski rafal]]

I would like to join ! Saleha Habibullah ( salehahabibullah@hotmail.com )

* note: this event is now fully booked.

==Wednesday, June 27==
* Join us for "Music on the Hill" at St. Johns college from 6-8pm for food and drink; this Wed is Blues, Soul and R&B by "Cathy McGill & Avatar". For more info see, [http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/asp/main.aspx?page=6981 schedule here].

== cricket anyone? ==
I've been getting some sniffs of interest in the game! I can probably arrange a bat here and we can play tennis ball cricket (I can also offer a tutorial on cricket ;) - for proper leather ball cricket, folks are welcome to practice with the UNM cricket club at Albuquerque coming saturday around noon! (dont worry, it's fun cricket and not professional quality either!), the club (and I) then travel to Colorado for a couple of matches 16/17 June; so if some are interested in a Colorado trip, let me know. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Amitabh_Trehan amitabh]]

Sun, June 10: We had a nice little cricket session at the St. Johns ground today. What about onother one tomorrrow (Mon, Jun 11) sometime. I have some equipment here - bat, pads, stumps, cricket ball and also tennis balls. [[Amitabh Trehan]]
[[Image:Cricket.jpg]]

== Photographers unite! ==
I have met quite a few avid photography enthusiasts here. Let's form a group. NM is a wonderful state for photography, maybe we can plan something! [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Amitabh_Trehan amitabh]]

I'd be happy to point you to some excellent places- we have no shortage here in NM. Lolly lollyb@santafe.edu

I would love to join. The only problem is that I left my camera back home ! HELP ! Saleha Habibullah

Hey, that would be great Lolly !! I'd love to go see some beautiful places ! I'll be writing to you soon :) -- [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Amelie_Veron Amelie]

I'm not much of a photographer yet, but I brought my camera, and I’m always looking for opportunities to practice. -- [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Jose_Delgado jd]

== El Farol and Other Places to Eat ==
Since the [http://www.elfarolsf.com El Farol Restaurant and Bar] has become immortalized in the complexity literature ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Farol_Bar_problem The El Farol Bar Problem]), we should check it out.

BTW, some locals said the El Farol is a tapas bar and not a full restaurant. See below for more places.

How about an outing some evening next week? Thursday or Friday night (14th or 15th)? I'm staying about a block from El Farol, on Acequia Madre... Should we run the NetLogo simulation first? :) [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Mollie_Poynton Mollie].

Some locals told me about a few more great places to eat in town: [http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=20215762 Horseman's Haven] and [http://bobcatbite.com/ Bobcat Bite]. I've also tried The [http://local.yahoo.com/details;_ylt=AiKEjhWdFcvv3xBCmycTIouHNcIF?id=20206492&stx=santa+fe+baking Santa Fe Baking Co] and it was great.

For fine dining [http://www.geronimorestaurant.com/home2.html Geronimo] comes highly recommended.

== mountain biking ==
the dale ball trails starting from the back of st john's provide 22mi+ of what looks like pretty nice trails for biking (& walking!), plus there are many more excellent trails local [http://forums.mtbr.com/forumdisplay.php?s=2e6c56b6542d2b67e39037cc578ead2e&f=91 and otherwise], and there is also a local bus for $2/day to access some of these. I know aussie simon has aquired a trusty steed and I also have a bike arriving so drop me a line if you keen to get amongst it - it is also possible to rent bikes in town, cheers, [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Daniel_lester aussie dan]

- yeeeeah. mike

== Anybody sticking around after the CSSS is over ?==
I (Amelie) plan to stay in the region (NM, Colorado, ..) for a week or so after the school. The best would be to rent a car and visit with somebody from the school .. let me know if you're interested :) --[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Amelie_veron Amelie]

-----

=Moved done stuff to bottom=
==Monday June 4th==
* at 7pm: soccer match @ the athletic field; be there! [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Olaf_Bochmann Olaf]]

* Monday June 4th, 9pm, Polyhmynia 13, Scotch tasting, hosted by Ben Mazzotta

==Wednesday, June 6th==
* 7pm: climbing @ the [http://www.climbsantafe.com/ Santa Fe Climbing Center]; let's meet at the pond in front of the student centre [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Gregor_Obernosterer Gregor]]

==Friday, June 8th==
* 2pm: Excursion to Taos. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Gregor_Obernosterer Gregor]] and [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Tim_Johann T1M]]

--I was up that way today. Took the high road and stopped at Chimayo - I thought the Sanctuaria de Chimayo was very, very cool. It is open 9A-6P each day. A little restaurant next door called Oleana's (sp?) serves up homemade tamales until 5P, Thurs-Mon. --Mollie

==Saturday, June 9th==
* some time in the morning: Excursion to southern NM - Socorro and/or White Sands and/or Roswell. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Gregor_Obernosterer Gregor]] and [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Tim_Johann T1M]]

* Climbing excursion: If you're in, contact me at vikas.shah (at) vanderbilt.edu so we can make plans. We'll be at [[http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/9507/lasconchas.htm Las Conchas]] or [[http://www.cs.unm.edu/~moret/crag.html Palomas]]. Let me know which you prefer. I've been to Conchas, fun smaller area with an easy approach. Never been to Palomas, has a substantially longer approach. I have topos available for both; descriptions and some of the routes are described at the links above. [[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/Vikas_Shah Vikas Shah]]
**''Update 6/7 1:30PM :'' My car is full. If anyone else would like to come, we'll have to arrange for another driver to come.
**''Update 6/8 8:50AM :'' There was unfortunately an injury, and one of the people going had to back out. There's room for one more.

==Hike to Nambé Lake, Saturday, June 9th==
Folks: we will hike to Nambé Lake, which is a less-strenuous hike in the same area as Santa Fe Baldy. The guide book says the lake is a “special treat”, and there are apparently lots of wildflowers. It is a 5-hour trip (including lunch stop), 7 miles return. The plan is to meet at 9.30am in the usual spot (same place from where the shuttle buses take us to SFI).

The first ten confirmed people are: me (Ryan), Simon, Mike, Elise, Monika, John, Dan, James, Hannah, Fred…

Please add yourself to this list if you want to come (apologies if you gave me a verbal commitment and I forgot).

John has kindly offered to drive and we will also be renting one car. If you want to come and aren't on the list above, please figure out your own transport arrangements (I think Michigan Will might be driving too).

Please bring: lunch (we can stop at a store in the morning); water (2 litres); a raincoat; a warm jumper; decent footwear; sun protection.

== Sunday, June 10: Join me for Church, 11am ==
I'm planning to go to visit a nearbye [http://www.calvarybaptistsantafe.com Baptist church], all are welcome to come. I will likely ride there. I can arrange another bike, or if we are many, perhaps a car. Please let me know below, or by email if you'd prefer. If you wanted to join me for Bible study on a one-off or weekly basis (this would be sitting round to read a passage of the Bible and discuss it) then let me know (again, by email if you'd prefer). All persuassions and questions welcome! [[Simon_Angus]] (s.angus AT unsw.edu.au)

I'm interested in both, but don't have a bike or car to get to church... how far is it? Heather (hbeil AT email.unc.edu)

==Sunday, June 10 - Hike up Atalaya==
Anyone up for a hike this afternoon? I know a bunch of you are probably hiked out after yesterday's excursion, but if anyone would like to tackle Atalaya this afternoon, there is a group of us leaving around 3pm. We'll meet on the road by the dorms at the top of the hill at 3. Hope to see some of you there! ->Josh

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-12T01:49:36Z

Andybell:

'''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alejandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm
* Elizabeth Mullane

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

Zooming in: Economists and other practitioners of game theory generally represent variation in insitutions as different modifications of the payoff structure of a specific game. They have been successful in understanding the impact of different institutions on equilbrium game behavior when institutions are imposed exogenously by nature, the gods, or the central planner. But there have only been a few early attempts at modeling the endogenous evolution of institutions guided by the motivated actions of the agents themselves. We propose to do just this with a specific problem (e.g. commons management), hoping to develop a formal framework that may be then generalizable to other problems.

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices regarding both how to behave toward each other in the current period, as well as
the institutions under which they carry out this behavior.

This could occur in an alternating fashion: within an institutional period players how to behave towards each other; between institutional periods players decide which institution(s) to pass on to the next generation. There may be other ways to go about this.

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y)?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

=Brain-storming model structure=

==model 1==
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

==model 2==

(this is possibly just a different discussion of the same model)

* a small set of m state variables - water, guns, food, whatever
* a set of n institutions that govern these state variables, of the norm and rule format (making this set is a tricky bit)
** n > m so that there is overlap/conflict among different institutions for governance of the same state variable
* a population of agents that are guided by a subset of these institutions (this subset is possibly parameterized by "memory")
* stressing events on the state variable that draw out different institutions
* some kind of network structure among agents to govern their interactions

The question over time then might be what makes different belief systems (which here are subsets of the institutional set shared by groups of agents) stable or persistent over time.

What is obviously missing from this summary is a description of what the institutions are, what the set needs to include, etc., and i think this is informed partly by some of the other discussion that simon and rafal have posted.

is this structurally too complicated?

= Notes and thoughts =

Paul: Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.). I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
*Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
*If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
The source of new institutions:
* Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
* OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

Paul:
I definitely favor throwing out the government and allowing the agents to endogenously determine their own institutions. An amazing transition to show would be when the agents elect to '''create''' a government, and this might ultimately be within the scope of a model of this type.

One important issue that is not yet clear to me is how new institutions should 'arrive'. Does it have to invade, with agents adopting it one at a time, or does it get applied to everyone all at once (maybe after some collective voting process)?

I think we might want to start (like Ostrom does with the PD) with a specific game (the institutionless starting point), and think through how we could formally operationalize a few institutions that might change the payoff structure of the base game. [Andrew proposed a commons-management game, which I think is a great idea.] We can mine the existing literature for possible insitutions, and translate them into the same language (define their place in them in multi-dimensional institution-space).

After we've got this down, we can see whether novel institutions could be generated and introduced, maybe using random assignment of the key variables that define the institution. Once we've done with with one base game, maybe we could do it with another, and maybe, just maybe, be able to throw nearly any base game into the model and see what institutions agents come up with.

Institutions must meet some plausibility constraints: e.g. enforcement must be financed in some way, agents cannot simply choose to pump up the subjective rewards (delta oi in Crawford-Ostrom grammar) for any old behavior. Defining the form of these (exogenous) contraints will be a key contribution of the model.

= Readings =

'''Crawford and Ostrom 1995''' [[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

Paul: I really favor this approach. It gives us a basic structure by which we can associate rewards/punishments with specific actions undertaken by the agents.

'''Sabatier 1991''' [[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

'''Finnemore and Sikkink 1998''' [[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

'''Berkes 2006''' [[media: berkes2006.pdf | From Community-Based Resource Management to Complex Systems: The Scale Issue and Marine Commons]]

A contrast of a few case studies in local marine fisheries as well as international fisheries. One of the points made is that local commons management and international commons management are fundamentally different - at the local level we can expect norms to emerge that lead to stable management, whereas at the international level the added complexity leads us to expect resilience over regime change, rather than stability

'''Ostrom 2000''' [[media: ostrom2000.pdf | Collective Action and the Evolution of Social norms ]]

At the risk of being Ostrom-heavy, this has a ton of gems in it, including an 8-point scheme for effective self-governance systems

'''Cardenas and Ostrom 2004''' [[media: cardenas2004.pdf | What do people bring into the game? Experiments in the field about cooperation in the commons ]]

Some field experiments highlighting some of the theoretical points in Ostrom 2000

'''Singleton 1999''' [[media: singleton1999.pdf | Commons Problems, Collective Action and Efficiency: Past and Present Institutions of Governance in Pacific Northwest Salmon Fisheries ]]

A contrast between pre-contact first nations management of salmon fisheries and modern state-first nations co-management, from an institutions perspective
----

Andrew: I've ordered an older (1987) book by Taylor that Ostrom cites as exploring the different kinds of games that can be applied to collective action problems: [[http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0521339901/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-9858211-8815341#reader-link The Possibility of Cooperation ]]. I think it might help us think about the structure of the n-player game occurring in the resource arena
----

Paul: The following is a scrap from a somewhat recent paper by folks from my group. It's a complicated case to consider representing more formally, but gives some contextual insight into how this stuff might play out in the real world:

Imagine the following scenario. A woman returns from collecting berries and pounding
palm fiber with a bawling infant. A wingless wasp stung her baby while she had put him down to
pound the fiber, and is in great pain. She is frustrated and says to the other women in camp,
“This is crazy for me to go out and pound fiber when I have such a young baby. I would gladly
work twice as hard when he is a little older if I could concentrate on watching him now.” A few
days later when the wound is infected and the child has a fever, another woman, remembering
a similar incident she experienced a few years ago, says, “You know, Singing Deer is right. We
should work hard when we have no baby on the breast and allow those with a young one to
care for it well.” Another woman, who has had no child in the last 10 years, says, “Why should
we work to feed other people’s babies? If you have a baby, you must feed it.” Other men and
women consider their own situation and the situation of their children and present their opinions.
Eventually a consensus (or at least, an agreement) is reached, with those in the minority either
agreeing to go along with the new norm or leaving to live with less foolish people. However, one
woman, who is not nursing, hardly pounds fiber at all. Other women begin to gossip about her,
remarking upon how lazy she is, because she has no child to care for. She notices that the
shares she receives in food distributions start to become less generous and begins to suspect
that others are talking about her behind her back. She leaves and pounds a large quantity of fiber,
which she shares generously. She can feel the warmth return and has learned her lesson.

We consider another similar scenario. A fifty year old man exclaims, “Look at these lazy
young men! They come back to camp at mid-day and play around. Here I am, and here you and
you are with lots of children to feed and no food to give them. What will those boys do when
they have big families to feed.” An age-mate agrees, adding “How do I know if that lazy one is
good enough for my daughter? How do I know if he will get enough food to keep her children
healthy? He should come to my fire and bring me lots of meat, then I will know.” The young
men are not so enthusiastic, because they do not like hunting all day long, but they are reluctant
to anger the men whose daughters they favor. One young man, who is a good hunter for his
age, thinking that he could take advantage of such a system, starts to hunt longer hours, giving
the older men generous shares. The other young men, afraid of being outdone, also begin to
hunt longer hours, sharing the fruits of their labor.

While admittedly hackneyed, these scenarios are meant to reflect the ongoing
discussions and commentaries about sharing, work effort and laziness that are so pervasive in
foraging societies. We do not mean to suggest that all social norms are explicitly negotiated
with words or that norms solidify over a short period as a result of a few conversations. In some
circumstances, lack of compliance and ‘voting with one’s feet’ are almost surely involved in
those negotiations. In fact, we know virtually nothing about how standards for appropriate
behavior emerge and change in small-scale societies without official means of enforcement. It is
likely that majority-rule voting arrangements are not adhered to, in the strict sense, since some
individuals exercise undue influence [e.g. kombeti among Aka, kapita among Efe (Hewlett and
Walker 1990), Mbuti, chiefs among Yuqui (Stearman 1989)]. Nevertheless, we propose that
such multi-individual negotiations, partly verbal and partly nonverbal, do result in social norms
and that the weight of opinion, based upon the individual costs and benefits of norms in given
contexts, determines accepted patterns of behavior.'' [http://www.unm.edu/~hebs/pubs/KaplanGurven_2001_FoodSharing.pdf]

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-12T01:48:32Z

Andybell:

'''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alejandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm
* Elizabeth Mullane

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

Zooming in: Economists and other practitioners of game theory generally represent variation in insitutions as different modifications of the payoff structure of a specific game. They have been successful in understanding the impact of different institutions on equilbrium game behavior when institutions are imposed exogenously by nature, the gods, or the central planner. But there have only been a few early attempts at modeling the endogenous evolution of institutions guided by the motivated actions of the agents themselves. We propose to do just this with a specific problem (e.g. commons management), hoping to develop a formal framework that may be then generalizable to other problems.

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices regarding both how to behave toward each other in the current period, as well as
the institutions under which they carry out this behavior.

This could occur in an alternating fashion: within an institutional period players how to behave towards each other; between institutional periods players decide which institution(s) to pass on to the next generation. There may be other ways to go about this.

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y)?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

=Brain-storming model structure=

==model 1==
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

==model 2==

(this is possibly just a different discussion of the same model)

* a small set of m state variables - water, guns, food, whatever
* a set of n institutions that govern these state variables, of the norm and rule format (making this set is a tricky bit)
** n > m so that there is overlap/conflict among different institutions for governance of the same state variable
* a population of agents that are guided by a subset of these institutions (this subset is possibly parameterized by "memory")
* stressing events on the state variable that draw out different institutions
* some kind of network structure among agents to govern their interactions

The question over time then might be what makes different belief systems (which here are subsets of the institutional set shared by groups of agents) stable or persistent over time.

What is obviously missing from this summary is a description of what the institutions are, what the set needs to include, etc., and i think this is informed partly by some of the other discussion that simon and rafal have posted.

is this structurally too complicated?

= Notes and thoughts =

Paul: Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.). I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
*Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
*If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
The source of new institutions:
* Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
* OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

Paul:
I definitely favor throwing out the government and allowing the agents to endogenously determine their own institutions. An amazing transition to show would be when the agents elect to '''create''' a government, and this might ultimately be within the scope of a model of this type.

One important issue that is not yet clear to me is how new institutions should 'arrive'. Does it have to invade, with agents adopting it one at a time, or does it get applied to everyone all at once (maybe after some collective voting process)?

I think we might want to start (like Ostrom does with the PD) with a specific game (the institutionless starting point), and think through how we could formally operationalize a few institutions that might change the payoff structure of the base game. [Andrew proposed a commons-management game, which I think is a great idea.] We can mine the existing literature for possible insitutions, and translate them into the same language (define their place in them in multi-dimensional institution-space).

After we've got this down, we can see whether novel institutions could be generated and introduced, maybe using random assignment of the key variables that define the institution. Once we've done with with one base game, maybe we could do it with another, and maybe, just maybe, be able to throw nearly any base game into the model and see what institutions agents come up with.

Institutions must meet some plausibility constraints: e.g. enforcement must be financed in some way, agents cannot simply choose to pump up the subjective rewards (delta oi in Crawford-Ostrom grammar) for any old behavior. Defining the form of these (exogenous) contraints will be a key contribution of the model.

= Readings =

'''Crawford and Ostrom 1995''' [[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

Paul: I really favor this approach. It gives us a basic structure by which we can associate rewards/punishments with specific actions undertaken by the agents.

'''Sabatier 1991''' [[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

'''Finnemore and Sikkink 1998''' [[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

'''Berkes 2006''' [[media: berkes2006.pdf | From Community-Based Resource Management to Complex Systems: The Scale Issue and Marine Commons]]

A contrast of a few case studies in local marine fisheries as well as international fisheries. One of the points made is that local commons management and international commons management are fundamentally different - at the local level we can expect norms to emerge that lead to stable management, whereas at the international level the added complexity leads us to expect resilience over regime change, rather than stability

'''Ostrom 2000''' [[media: ostrom2000.pdf | Collective Action and the Evolution of Social norms ]]

At the risk of being Ostrom-heavy, this has a ton of gems in it, including an 8-point scheme for effective self-governance systems

'''Cardenas and Ostrom 2004''' [[media: cardenas2004.pdf | What do people bring into the game? Experiments in the field about cooperation in the commons ]]

Some field experiments highlighting some of the theoretical points in Ostrom 2000

'''Singleton 1999''' [[media: singleton1999.pdf | Commons Problems, Collective Action and Efficiency: Past and Present Institutions of Governance in Pacific Northwest Salmon Fisheries ]]

A contrast between pre-contact first nations management of salmon fisheries and modern state-first nations co-management, from an institutions perspective
----

Andrew: I've ordered an older (1987) book by Taylor that Ostrom cites as exploring the different kinds of games that can be applied to collective action problems: [[http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0521339901/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-9858211-8815341#reader-link | The Possibility of Cooperation ]]
----

Paul: The following is a scrap from a somewhat recent paper by folks from my group. It's a complicated case to consider representing more formally, but gives some contextual insight into how this stuff might play out in the real world:

Imagine the following scenario. A woman returns from collecting berries and pounding
palm fiber with a bawling infant. A wingless wasp stung her baby while she had put him down to
pound the fiber, and is in great pain. She is frustrated and says to the other women in camp,
“This is crazy for me to go out and pound fiber when I have such a young baby. I would gladly
work twice as hard when he is a little older if I could concentrate on watching him now.” A few
days later when the wound is infected and the child has a fever, another woman, remembering
a similar incident she experienced a few years ago, says, “You know, Singing Deer is right. We
should work hard when we have no baby on the breast and allow those with a young one to
care for it well.” Another woman, who has had no child in the last 10 years, says, “Why should
we work to feed other people’s babies? If you have a baby, you must feed it.” Other men and
women consider their own situation and the situation of their children and present their opinions.
Eventually a consensus (or at least, an agreement) is reached, with those in the minority either
agreeing to go along with the new norm or leaving to live with less foolish people. However, one
woman, who is not nursing, hardly pounds fiber at all. Other women begin to gossip about her,
remarking upon how lazy she is, because she has no child to care for. She notices that the
shares she receives in food distributions start to become less generous and begins to suspect
that others are talking about her behind her back. She leaves and pounds a large quantity of fiber,
which she shares generously. She can feel the warmth return and has learned her lesson.

We consider another similar scenario. A fifty year old man exclaims, “Look at these lazy
young men! They come back to camp at mid-day and play around. Here I am, and here you and
you are with lots of children to feed and no food to give them. What will those boys do when
they have big families to feed.” An age-mate agrees, adding “How do I know if that lazy one is
good enough for my daughter? How do I know if he will get enough food to keep her children
healthy? He should come to my fire and bring me lots of meat, then I will know.” The young
men are not so enthusiastic, because they do not like hunting all day long, but they are reluctant
to anger the men whose daughters they favor. One young man, who is a good hunter for his
age, thinking that he could take advantage of such a system, starts to hunt longer hours, giving
the older men generous shares. The other young men, afraid of being outdone, also begin to
hunt longer hours, sharing the fruits of their labor.

While admittedly hackneyed, these scenarios are meant to reflect the ongoing
discussions and commentaries about sharing, work effort and laziness that are so pervasive in
foraging societies. We do not mean to suggest that all social norms are explicitly negotiated
with words or that norms solidify over a short period as a result of a few conversations. In some
circumstances, lack of compliance and ‘voting with one’s feet’ are almost surely involved in
those negotiations. In fact, we know virtually nothing about how standards for appropriate
behavior emerge and change in small-scale societies without official means of enforcement. It is
likely that majority-rule voting arrangements are not adhered to, in the strict sense, since some
individuals exercise undue influence [e.g. kombeti among Aka, kapita among Efe (Hewlett and
Walker 1990), Mbuti, chiefs among Yuqui (Stearman 1989)]. Nevertheless, we propose that
such multi-individual negotiations, partly verbal and partly nonverbal, do result in social norms
and that the weight of opinion, based upon the individual costs and benefits of norms in given
contexts, determines accepted patterns of behavior.'' [http://www.unm.edu/~hebs/pubs/KaplanGurven_2001_FoodSharing.pdf]

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-10T23:52:53Z

Andybell:

'''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alejandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

Zooming in: Economists and other practitioners of game theory generally represent variation in insitutions as different modifications of the payoff structure of a specific game. They have been successful in understanding the impact of different institutions on equilbrium game behavior when institutions are imposed exogenously by nature, the gods, or the central planner. But there have only been a few early attempts at modeling the endogenous evolution of institutions guided by the motivated actions of the agents themselves. We propose to do just this with a specific problem (e.g. commons management), hoping to develop a formal framework that may be then generalizable to other problems.

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices regarding both how to behave toward each other in the current period, as well as
the insitutions under which they carry out this behavior.

This could occur in an alternating fashion: within an institutional period players how to behave towards each other; between institutional periods players decide which institution(s) to pass on to the next generation. There may be other ways to go about this.

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y)?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

=Brain-storming model structure=

==model 1==
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

==model 2==

(this is possibly just a different discussion of the same model)

* a small set of m state variables - water, guns, food, whatever
* a set of n institutions that govern these state variables, of the norm and rule format (making this set is a tricky bit)
** n > m so that there is overlap/conflict among different institutions for governance of the same state variable
* a population of agents that are guided by a subset of these institutions (this subset is possibly parameterized by "memory")
* stressing events on the state variable that draw out different institutions
* some kind of network structure among agents to govern their interactions

The question over time then might be what makes different belief systems (which here are subsets of the institutional set shared by groups of agents) stable or persistent over time.

What is obviously missing from this summary is a description of what the institutions are, what the set needs to include, etc., and i think this is informed partly by some of the other discussion that simon and rafal have posted.

is this structurally too complicated?

= Notes and thoughts =

Paul: Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.). I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
*Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
*If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
The source of new institutions:
* Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
* OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

Paul:
I definitely favor throwing out the government and allowing the agents to endogenously determine their own institutions. An amazing transition to show would be when the agents elect to '''create''' a government, and this might ultimately be within the scope of a model of this type.

One important issue that is not yet clear to me is how new institutions should 'arrive'. Does it have to invade, with agents adopting it one at a time, or does it get applied to everyone all at once (maybe after some collective voting process)?

I think we might want to start (like Ostrom does with the PD) with a specific game (the institutionless starting point), and think through how we could formally operationalize a few institutions that might change the payoff structure of the base game. [Andrew proposed a commons-management game, which I think is a great idea.] We can mine the existing literature for possible insitutions, and translate them into the same language (define their place in them in multi-dimensional institution-space).

After we've got this down, we can see whether novel institutions could be generated and introduced, maybe using random assignment of the key variables that define the institution. Once we've done with with one base game, maybe we could do it with another, and maybe, just maybe, be able to throw nearly any base game into the model and see what institutions agents come up with.

Institutions must meet some plausibility constraints: e.g. enforcement must be financed in some way, agents cannot simply choose to pump up the subjective rewards (delta oi in Crawford-Ostrom grammar) for any old behavior. Defining the form of these (exogenous) contraints will be a key contribution of the model.

= Readings =

'''Crawford and Ostrom 1995''' [[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

Paul: I really favor this approach. It gives us a basic structure by which we can associate rewards/punishments with specific actions undertaken by the agents.

'''Sabatier 1991''' [[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

'''Finnemore and Sikkink 1998''' [[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

'''Berkes 2006''' [[media: berkes2006.pdf | From Community-Based Resource Management to Complex Systems: The Scale Issue and Marine Commons]]

A contrast of a few case studies in local marine fisheries as well as international fisheries. One of the points made is that local commons management and international commons management are fundamentally different - at the local level we can expect norms to emerge that lead to stable management, whereas at the international level the added complexity leads us to expect resilience over regime change, rather than stability

'''Ostrom 2000''' [[media: ostrom2000.pdf | Collective Action and the Evolution of Social norms ]]

At the risk of being Ostrom-heavy, this has a ton of gems in it, including an 8-point scheme for effective self-governance systems

'''Cardenas and Ostrom 2004''' [[media: cardenas2004.pdf | What do people bring into the game? Experiments in the field about cooperation in the commons ]]

Some field experiments highlighting some of the theoretical points in Ostrom 2000

'''Singleton 1999''' [[media: singleton1999.pdf | Commons Problems, Collective Action and Efficiency: Past and Present Institutions of Governance in Pacific Northwest Salmon Fisheries ]]

A contrast between pre-contact first nations management of salmon fisheries and modern state-first nations co-management, from an institutions perspective

----

Paul: The following is a scrap from a somewhat recent paper by folks from my group. It's a complicated case to consider representing more formally, but gives some contextual insight into how this stuff might play out in the real world:

Imagine the following scenario. A woman returns from collecting berries and pounding
palm fiber with a bawling infant. A wingless wasp stung her baby while she had put him down to
pound the fiber, and is in great pain. She is frustrated and says to the other women in camp,
“This is crazy for me to go out and pound fiber when I have such a young baby. I would gladly
work twice as hard when he is a little older if I could concentrate on watching him now.” A few
days later when the wound is infected and the child has a fever, another woman, remembering
a similar incident she experienced a few years ago, says, “You know, Singing Deer is right. We
should work hard when we have no baby on the breast and allow those with a young one to
care for it well.” Another woman, who has had no child in the last 10 years, says, “Why should
we work to feed other people’s babies? If you have a baby, you must feed it.” Other men and
women consider their own situation and the situation of their children and present their opinions.
Eventually a consensus (or at least, an agreement) is reached, with those in the minority either
agreeing to go along with the new norm or leaving to live with less foolish people. However, one
woman, who is not nursing, hardly pounds fiber at all. Other women begin to gossip about her,
remarking upon how lazy she is, because she has no child to care for. She notices that the
shares she receives in food distributions start to become less generous and begins to suspect
that others are talking about her behind her back. She leaves and pounds a large quantity of fiber,
which she shares generously. She can feel the warmth return and has learned her lesson.

We consider another similar scenario. A fifty year old man exclaims, “Look at these lazy
young men! They come back to camp at mid-day and play around. Here I am, and here you and
you are with lots of children to feed and no food to give them. What will those boys do when
they have big families to feed.” An age-mate agrees, adding “How do I know if that lazy one is
good enough for my daughter? How do I know if he will get enough food to keep her children
healthy? He should come to my fire and bring me lots of meat, then I will know.” The young
men are not so enthusiastic, because they do not like hunting all day long, but they are reluctant
to anger the men whose daughters they favor. One young man, who is a good hunter for his
age, thinking that he could take advantage of such a system, starts to hunt longer hours, giving
the older men generous shares. The other young men, afraid of being outdone, also begin to
hunt longer hours, sharing the fruits of their labor.

While admittedly hackneyed, these scenarios are meant to reflect the ongoing
discussions and commentaries about sharing, work effort and laziness that are so pervasive in
foraging societies. We do not mean to suggest that all social norms are explicitly negotiated
with words or that norms solidify over a short period as a result of a few conversations. In some
circumstances, lack of compliance and ‘voting with one’s feet’ are almost surely involved in
those negotiations. In fact, we know virtually nothing about how standards for appropriate
behavior emerge and change in small-scale societies without official means of enforcement. It is
likely that majority-rule voting arrangements are not adhered to, in the strict sense, since some
individuals exercise undue influence [e.g. kombeti among Aka, kapita among Efe (Hewlett and
Walker 1990), Mbuti, chiefs among Yuqui (Stearman 1989)]. Nevertheless, we propose that
such multi-individual negotiations, partly verbal and partly nonverbal, do result in social norms
and that the weight of opinion, based upon the individual costs and benefits of norms in given
contexts, determines accepted patterns of behavior.'' [http://www.unm.edu/~hebs/pubs/KaplanGurven_2001_FoodSharing.pdf]

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-10T23:51:09Z

Andybell:

'''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alejandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

Zooming in: Economists and other practitioners of game theory generally represent variation in insitutions as different modifications of the payoff structure of a specific game. They have been successful in understanding the impact of different institutions on equilbrium game behavior when institutions are imposed exogenously by nature, the gods, or the central planner. But there have only been a few early attempts at modeling the endogenous evolution of institutions guided by the motivated actions of the agents themselves. We propose to do just this with a specific problem (e.g. commons management), hoping to develop a formal framework that may be then generalizable to other problems.

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices regarding both how to behave toward each other in the current period, as well as
the insitutions under which they carry out this behavior.

This could occur in an alternating fashion: within an institutional period players how to behave towards each other; between institutional periods players decide which institution(s) to pass on to the next generation. There may be other ways to go about this.

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y)?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

=Brain-storming model structure=

==model 1==
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

==model 2==

(this is possibly just a different discussion of the same model)

* a small set of m state variables - water, guns, food, whatever
* a set of n institutions that govern these state variables, of the norm and rule format (making this set is a tricky bit)
** n > m so that there is overlap/conflict among different institutions for governance of the same state variable
* a population of agents that are guided by a subset of these institutions (this subset is possibly parameterized by "memory")
* stressing events on the state variable that draw out different institutions
* some kind of network structure among agents to govern their interactions

The question over time then might be what makes different belief systems (which here are subsets of the institutional set shared by groups of agents) stable or persistent over time.

What is obviously missing from this summary is a description of what the institutions are, what the set needs to include, etc., and i think this is informed partly by some of the other discussion that simon and rafal have posted.

is this structurally too complicated?

= Notes and thoughts =

Paul: Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.). I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
*Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
*If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
The source of new institutions:
* Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
* OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

Paul:
I definitely favor throwing out the government and allowing the agents to endogenously determine their own institutions. An amazing transition to show would be when the agents elect to '''create''' a government, and this might ultimately be within the scope of a model of this type.

One important issue that is not yet clear to me is how new institutions should 'arrive'. Does it have to invade, with agents adopting it one at a time, or does it get applied to everyone all at once (maybe after some collective voting process)?

I think we might want to start (like Ostrom does with the PD) with a specific game (the institutionless starting point), and think through how we could formally operationalize a few institutions that might change the payoff structure of the base game. [Andrew proposed a commons-management game, which I think is a great idea.] We can mine the existing literature for possible insitutions, and translate them into the same language (define their place in them in multi-dimensional institution-space).

After we've got this down, we can see whether novel institutions could be generated and introduced, maybe using random assignment of the key variables that define the institution. Once we've done with with one base game, maybe we could do it with another, and maybe, just maybe, be able to throw nearly any base game into the model and see what institutions agents come up with.

Institutions must meet some plausibility constraints: e.g. enforcement must be financed in some way, agents cannot simply choose to pump up the subjective rewards (delta oi in Crawford-Ostrom grammar) for any old behavior. Defining the form of these (exogenous) contraints will be a key contribution of the model.

= Readings =

'''Crawford and Ostrom 1995''' [[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

Paul: I really favor this approach. It gives us a basic structure by which we can associate rewards/punishments with specific actions undertaken by the agents.

'''Sabatier 1991''' [[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

'''Finnemore and Sikkink 1998''' [[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

'''Berkes 2006''' [[media: berkes2006.pdf | From Community-Based Resource Management to Complex Systems: The Scale Issue and Marine Commons]]

A contrast of a few case studies in local marine fisheries as well as international fisheries. One of the points made is that local commons management and international commons management are fundamentally different - at the local level we can expect norms to emerge that lead to stable management, whereas at the international level the added complexity leads us to expect resilience over regime change, rather than stability

'''Ostrom 2000''' [[media: ostrom2000.pdf | Collective Action and the Evolution of Social norms ]]

At the risk of being Ostrom-heavy, this has a ton of gems in it, including an 8-point scheme for effective self-governance systems

'''Singleton 1999''' [[media: singleton1999.pdf | Commons Problems, Collective Action and Efficiency: Past and Present Institutions of Governance in Pacific Northwest Salmon Fisheries ]]

A contrast between pre-contact first nations management of salmon fisheries and modern state-first nations co-management, from an institutions perspective

----

Paul: The following is a scrap from a somewhat recent paper by folks from my group. It's a complicated case to consider representing more formally, but gives some contextual insight into how this stuff might play out in the real world:

Imagine the following scenario. A woman returns from collecting berries and pounding
palm fiber with a bawling infant. A wingless wasp stung her baby while she had put him down to
pound the fiber, and is in great pain. She is frustrated and says to the other women in camp,
“This is crazy for me to go out and pound fiber when I have such a young baby. I would gladly
work twice as hard when he is a little older if I could concentrate on watching him now.” A few
days later when the wound is infected and the child has a fever, another woman, remembering
a similar incident she experienced a few years ago, says, “You know, Singing Deer is right. We
should work hard when we have no baby on the breast and allow those with a young one to
care for it well.” Another woman, who has had no child in the last 10 years, says, “Why should
we work to feed other people’s babies? If you have a baby, you must feed it.” Other men and
women consider their own situation and the situation of their children and present their opinions.
Eventually a consensus (or at least, an agreement) is reached, with those in the minority either
agreeing to go along with the new norm or leaving to live with less foolish people. However, one
woman, who is not nursing, hardly pounds fiber at all. Other women begin to gossip about her,
remarking upon how lazy she is, because she has no child to care for. She notices that the
shares she receives in food distributions start to become less generous and begins to suspect
that others are talking about her behind her back. She leaves and pounds a large quantity of fiber,
which she shares generously. She can feel the warmth return and has learned her lesson.

We consider another similar scenario. A fifty year old man exclaims, “Look at these lazy
young men! They come back to camp at mid-day and play around. Here I am, and here you and
you are with lots of children to feed and no food to give them. What will those boys do when
they have big families to feed.” An age-mate agrees, adding “How do I know if that lazy one is
good enough for my daughter? How do I know if he will get enough food to keep her children
healthy? He should come to my fire and bring me lots of meat, then I will know.” The young
men are not so enthusiastic, because they do not like hunting all day long, but they are reluctant
to anger the men whose daughters they favor. One young man, who is a good hunter for his
age, thinking that he could take advantage of such a system, starts to hunt longer hours, giving
the older men generous shares. The other young men, afraid of being outdone, also begin to
hunt longer hours, sharing the fruits of their labor.

While admittedly hackneyed, these scenarios are meant to reflect the ongoing
discussions and commentaries about sharing, work effort and laziness that are so pervasive in
foraging societies. We do not mean to suggest that all social norms are explicitly negotiated
with words or that norms solidify over a short period as a result of a few conversations. In some
circumstances, lack of compliance and ‘voting with one’s feet’ are almost surely involved in
those negotiations. In fact, we know virtually nothing about how standards for appropriate
behavior emerge and change in small-scale societies without official means of enforcement. It is
likely that majority-rule voting arrangements are not adhered to, in the strict sense, since some
individuals exercise undue influence [e.g. kombeti among Aka, kapita among Efe (Hewlett and
Walker 1990), Mbuti, chiefs among Yuqui (Stearman 1989)]. Nevertheless, we propose that
such multi-individual negotiations, partly verbal and partly nonverbal, do result in social norms
and that the weight of opinion, based upon the individual costs and benefits of norms in given
contexts, determines accepted patterns of behavior.'' [http://www.unm.edu/~hebs/pubs/KaplanGurven_2001_FoodSharing.pdf]

File:Singleton1999.pdf

2007-06-10T23:42:22Z

Andybell:

File:Ostrom2000.pdf

2007-06-10T23:40:24Z

Andybell:

File:Cardenas2004.pdf

2007-06-10T23:40:07Z

Andybell:

File:Berkes2006.pdf

2007-06-10T23:39:47Z

Andybell:

CSSS 2007 Santa Fe-After Hours

2007-06-10T01:17:19Z

Andybell:

Friday 3:00 Lab Signup

2007-06-08T15:11:25Z

Andybell:

{{CSSS 2007 Santa Fe}}

# Vikas Shah <br>
# Kristen Fortney <br>
# Jose Delgado
# Joe DeRosa
# Amir Goldberg
# Heather Beil
# Joseph Lizier
# Mike Wojnowicz
# James Battin
# Alex Healing
# Saleha Habibullah
# Alexander Shpunt
# Yael

Tuesday 8:30 Lab Signup

2007-06-08T15:10:53Z

Andybell:

==Students in the 8:30 Lab Section==
# Rhonda Belue
# Ben Mazzotta
# Paul Dwyer
# Luciano Oviedo
# Mollie Poynton
# Yossi Yovel
# Gregor Obernosterer
# Liz Mullane
# Brian Lawler
# Juergen Pahle
# Frederic Bartumeus
# Tim Johann
# Chris Atwood
# Andrew Bell

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-07T16:19:44Z

Andybell:

'''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alenjandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices over the following
* within an institutional period: how to behave towards each other
* between institutional periods: which institution to have (and pass on?) to the next generation

Of interest is whether memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

=A possible model=
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

==A not-so-different possible model==

(this is possibly just a different discussion of the same model)

* a small set of m state variables - water, guns, food, whatever
* a set of n institutions that govern these state variables, of the norm and rule format (making this set is a tricky bit)
** n > m so that there is overlap/conflict among different institutions for governance of the same state variable
* a population of agents that are guided by a subset of these institutions (this subset is possibly parameterized by "memory")
* stressing events on the state variable that draw out different institutions
* some kind of network structure among agents to govern their interactions

The question over time then might be what makes different belief systems (which here are subsets of the institutional set shared by groups of agents) stable or persistent over time.

What is obviously missing from this summary is a description of what the institutions are, what the set needs to include, etc., and i think this is informed partly by some of the other discussion that simon and rafal have posted.

is this structurally too complicated?

= Notes and thoughts =

From Paul:
* Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.).
* I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
**Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
* Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
**If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
* The source of new institutions:
** Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
** OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

= Readings =

[[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

[[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

[[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-07T16:19:07Z

Andybell:

'''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alenjandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices over the following
* within an institutional period: how to behave towards each other
* between institutional periods: which institution to have (and pass on?) to the next generation

Of interest is whether memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

==A possible model==
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

=A not-so-different possible model=

(this is possibly just a different discussion of the same model)

* a small set of m state variables - water, guns, food, whatever
* a set of n institutions that govern these state variables, of the norm and rule format (making this set is a tricky bit)
** n > m so that there is overlap/conflict among different institutions for governance of the same state variable
* a population of agents that are guided by a subset of these institutions (this subset is possibly parameterized by "memory")
* stressing events on the state variable that draw out different institutions
* some kind of network structure among agents to govern their interactions

The question over time then might be what makes different belief systems (which here are subsets of the institutional set shared by groups of agents) stable or persistent over time.

What is obviously missing from this summary is a description of what the institutions are, what the set needs to include, etc., and i think this is informed partly by some of the other discussion that simon and rafal have posted.

is this structurally too complicated?

== Notes and thoughts ==

From Paul:
* Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.).
* I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
**Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
* Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
**If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
* The source of new institutions:
** Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
** OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

= Readings =

[[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

[[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

[[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-07T16:15:24Z

Andybell: /* Approach */

'''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alenjandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices over the following
* within an institutional period: how to behave towards each other
* between institutional periods: which institution to have (and pass on?) to the next generation

Of interest is whether memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

=A possible model=
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

=A not-so-different possible model=

(this is possibly just a different discussion of the same model)

* a small set of m state variables - water, guns, food, whatever
* a set of n institutions that govern these state variables, of the norm and rule format (making this set is a tricky bit)
** n > m so that there is overlap/conflict among different institutions for governance of the same state variable
* a population of agents that are guided by a subset of these institutions (this subset is possibly parameterized by "memory")
* stressing events on the state variable that draw out different institutions
* some kind of network structure among agents to govern their interactions

The question over time then might be what makes different belief systems (which here are subsets of the institutional set shared by groups of agents) stable or persistent over time.

What is obviously missing from this summary is a description of what the institutions are, what the set needs to include, etc., and i think this is informed partly by some of the other discussion that simon and rafal have posted.

is this structurally too complicated?

== Notes and thoughts ==

From Paul:
* Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.).
* I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
**Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
* Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
**If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
* The source of new institutions:
** Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
** OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

= Readings =

[[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

[[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

[[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

Friday 3:00 Lab Signup

2007-06-07T14:16:49Z

Andybell:

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-07T05:02:56Z

Andybell:

'''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alenjandro Balbin
* Rafal Raciborski
* Ryan Chisholm

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices over the following
* within an institutional period: how to behave towards each other
* between institutional periods: which institution to have (and pass on?) to the next generation

Of interest is whether memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

A possible model:
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

== Notes and thoughts ==

From Paul:
* Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.).
* I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
**Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
* Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
**If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
* The source of new institutions:
** Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
** OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

Rafal:
Is it possible for a "bad" institution to thrive even if the majority of the population prefer to abolish it? Take, for example, the norm of corruption. If an agent breaks a "good" norm and is caught, he receives punishment (P1). However, the agent can propose a bribe to avoid P1. There is some probability that the bribe will be accepted or if not, a harsher punishment (P2) will be administered. It would be nice to show that under certain conditions, there may be some stable population of agents that always proposes a bribe. However, if too many agents propose a bribe, the "good" institution ceases to exist. That could cast some light on why corruption persists in some counties. A related question would be how corruption arises in the first place. Are some "good" institutions more conductive to the emergence of corruption than others? For example, if the government tolerates free riding on a good norm for a while, over time agents may internalize that norm and cooperate because this is the right thing to do. However, if P1 is harsh from the very start, it may encourage corruption because the difference between P1 and P2 will be small so it pays to offer a bribe. Thus, ironically, newly-created good institutions with a strong enforcement mechanism may be self-destructive.

Andrew:
Something that is cool to think about with Rafal's bribe ideas is the difference between a system with an exogenous group (like the government) giving the punishment, versus self-governing groups where accountability and punishment arise from the agents sharing a belief in the norm itself. it would be interesting to look at whether in a self-governing system, a "good" norm and a bribe norm can both be stable, like Rafal is discussing.

= Readings =

[[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

[[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

[[media: Finnemore_Sikkink_1998.pdf | International Norm Dynamics and Political Change ]]

This article is about the emergence of norms on an international level so no need to read it closely. However, see pp.895-896 and 901-902 on the life cycle of a norm. Bottom line: It is hard to create/promote a norm but once a norm reaches a tipping point, it cascades through society. We could apply it to the domestic level: Once a certain number of agents adopt a norm, the norm is automatically adopted by the remaining agents.

How (not) to model social processes: Thick and thin models in the social sciences

2007-06-06T14:35:22Z

Andybell:

This could be the idea for a project - or maybe just a topic to discuss over a coffee. Please feel free to add ideas.

Models [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/models-science/] have fascinated philosophers of science for a long time. However, computational modeling is quite a new technique for the social sciences, and there relatively little has been written on the use of computational models in the social sciences from a philosophy of science perspective.

Here are some questions:

* Is there a systematic difference between modeling in the (natural) sciences and modeling in the social sciences?
* How detailed should our models be? (Two paradigms seem to be evolving: On the one hand, some researchers try to "grow societies" from the bottom up. These are sometimes called "thick" models. On the other hand, there are "thin" models, which try to model only one specific social mechanism with highly idealized models.)
* How are models related to "reality"?
* How do we make sure that our models are relevant and avoid producing artefacts?

We could discuss several examples of models in the social sciences and maybe read some of the (few) existing papers in this field and try to define our own position. If you are interested, please leave a comment or send me an email to k dot p dot spiekermann at lse dot ac dot uk.

Resources (more to be added):

* The "thick" approach: [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/63000401/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0]
* one critique: [http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002784/]

Kai
--[[User:Spiekermann|Spiekermann]] 17:38, 5 June 2007 (MDT)

I'm interested in this topic. I think it is important to consider the history of modeling in the social sciences through the so-called 'Quantitative Revolution.' I would also like to further explore the entrenched (or imposed?) quantitative/qualitative divide across the social sciences and possible stigmas or clasifications that result from these distinctions.

An additional potential topic: validating and replicating results in the (hard) sciences versus the social sciences.

Liz (emullane at ucla dot edu)

Fascinating discussion. Can you post a list of sources in addition to the links? The Wiley link was broken when I tried it. I'd be happy to track down a copy from the bibliography.

Cheers- [[Ben Mazzotta]]

Hi Kai, I'd be very interested to participate and think about the issue (especially the two last themes you mentioned -- How are models related to "reality"? and -- How do we make sure that our models are relevant and avoid producing artefacts?. [[User:Amelie|Amelie]] 00:48, 6 June 2007 (MDT)

Hey, I posted a suggested meeting time on the related thread, [[Representing People]], for lunch on friday after Scott Page's lectures. Perhaps from there we could break off to one of the conference rooms in Santa Fe Hall.

Representing People

2007-06-06T14:32:52Z

Andybell:

'''Contact''': Andrew Bell (andybell@umich.edu)

I’d like to get a group together to discuss model representations of social systems – what are the different approaches we can take, and what is the scope of the knowledge we can get out of them (and how should it be used).

I would be interested. Dan N.

Me too. Saleha Habibullah

I'm also interested. I've added a separate discussion point [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/How_%28not%29_to_model_social_processes:_Thick_and_thin_models_in_the_social_sciences] this morning, but maybe we should merge the two? Kai

There are a number of approaches to modeling social systems that I'd like to become more familiar with--game theory, evolutionary game theory, agent-based models, ???. Would anyone with some experience applying any of these tools be willing to give a tutorial, perhaps give a glimpse at the specific ways in which they've put them to use? Paul H.

I would be interested. Rhonda BeLue

=Meeting=

Why don't we agree to meet over lunch on Friday, after Scott Page's lectures? If it looks like there are too many of us to chat around those big tables (between this thread and Kai's, there are probably close to 10 people), we can deke off to one of the nice conference rooms in the santa fe hall.

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-05T16:41:45Z

Andybell:

'''People Involved'''
* Andrew Bell
* Simon Angus
* Will Ludington
* Paul Hooper
* Alenjandro Balbin

= Concept =
We often study the effect of certain social institutions, and sometimes look at transitions, but what effect does passed-on cultural institutions play in the evolution and formation of cohesive social institutions?

== Proposition ==
Suppose that a set of agents have choices over the following
* within an institutional period: how to behave towards each other
* between institutional periods: which institution to have (and pass on?) to the next generation

Of interest is whether memory (cultural, historical, heritage) affects agents' long-term decisions about social institutions?

Research Questions follow:
* is there a stable (long-run) social institution that is selected?
* does this institutional structure have a path-dependance (i.e. must institutaion A then B then C preceed the selection and stabilisation of institution X)?
* do agents operate heterogeneosly within a period (e.g. old agents who have cultural knnowledge prefer institution X, but young agents, with shorter memories, or trust in passed-on heritage select institution Y?
* what scaling? do small vs. large population affect these decisions?
* what about a two-population model? do we see group selection occuring to promote a certain institution in both camps? or is there a stable complimentary institutional framework (e.g. E. vs. W. Germany)?

== Approach ==
* Keep things simple
* construct a simple interaction game for the agents, causing the institutions to be also simple
** (leave out voting methodologies, political interest etc.)

A possible model:
* a standard hunter-gatherer scenario under scarcity
* agents face a decision problem whether to cooperate the hunt or to act individually ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt stag-hunt] style)
* for the coalitions: the success of any grouping is proportional to the number in the coalition (due to division of labour within the coalition, trust-based hunting methods)
* for the individuals: a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_game minority game] design (we are hunting) could lead to preferable outcomes (I didn't hunt where the large, noisy group hunted?)
* institutions:
** a 'good' institution for cooperation: a transfer system (public good provision?) to all members of society, supports free-riders in the short-term, but does this survive in the long-run (over successive generations, since some agents remember when everyone had lack)
** a targeted (progressive) taxation system: a transfer system specifically from the well-off top half to the bottom half (ranked in terms of reward from expended gathering effort)
** no transfer system: you get (only) what you work for, no other transfers or public good provision
** a consumption taxation regime: distribution based on discretionary welfare (so we would need a metabolism system for basic needs, and then a discretionary part for 'leisure')
** public good provision through taxation: but only to the 'cultural memory fund' -- i.e. for libraries, books, plays, histories, langauge etc. that capture things about how times were in previous set-ups

Parameters:
* memory of each individual (how many previous instutional arrangements they remember)
* birth/death rates (how fast we turn over the population ('physical' memory)

== Notes and thoughts ==

From Paul:
* Andrew introduced Ostrom's typology of institutional norms--mays, musts, and must nots--where each directive is accompanied by a promise of reward or punishment for compliance or non-compliance. 'Good' institutions presumably alter the fitness landscape of individual players to be more compatable with socially desirable outcomes (contribute to the public good, don't shirk, engage in low-cost or pro-social rather than disruptive forms of status competition, etc.).
* I wonder if the institutions that the players choose/develop/vote on between periods could be formulated using this framework, where the institution pairs a punishment/reward to any given individual behavior. The form of the punishment/reward would have to be specified by several variables.
**Let's say the players are considering a punishment for not contributing to a public good. Is the size of the punishment inversely proportional to the amount contributed? What is the shape of that function? Or is there a fixed fine for contributions below a certain level?
* Any collective punishment or reward system will require resources for enforcement.
**If players institute a punishment for shriking on a public good, would each be willing to contribute resources to fund the police that enforce it?
* The source of new institutions:
** Can we somewhat randomly generate institutions, and see whether they're taken up by the players? Some institutions would be dumb (e.g. the more you contribute to the public good, the more you are punished), and others favorable compared to the original intitutionless setting.
** OR, because there are so many ways an institution could be specified, we could generate a fixed number of institutions that we introduce and allow the players to consider.

= Readings =

[[media: crawfordandostrom1995.pdf | A Grammar of Institutions ]]

This is the reading I mentioned that might be a good, consistent framework to codify institutions (Andrew)

[[media: sabatier1991.pdf | Toward better theories of the policy process ]]

A quick review of some influential theories on how different group and individual actors, combine with different events/stresses to bring issues to the policy agenda

File:Sabatier1991.pdf

2007-06-05T16:38:47Z

Andybell:

File:Crawfordandostrom1995.pdf

2007-06-05T16:38:26Z

Andybell:

The evolution of social cohesion

2007-06-05T16:36:21Z

Andybell:

CSSS 2007 Santa Fe-Projects & Working Groups

2007-06-04T19:00:23Z

Andybell:

{{CSSS 2007 Santa Fe}}

[http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~rockmore/Projects.pdf Project Ideas Culled from Responses to Dan's Questions]

----
A couple of discussions I’d like to have, if anyone is interested. Maybe add your name below and we can set up a time (and if there is any particular format these should be in please change it!) Andrew Bell

1 Representing People

I’d like to get a group together to discuss model representations of social systems – what are the different approaches we can take, and what is the scope of the knowledge we can get out of them (and how should it be used).

2 Communicating complexity

Wondering if anyone else is interested in the role the tools of complexity might/should play in communicating nonlinearity, etc., to non-specialists (policy makers, local stakeholders).

----

Andrew Bell

2007-05-06T15:06:59Z

Andybell:

[[Image:Andrewbell.jpg]]

hi everyone! i'm andrew, i have a basc and masc in engineering, i am now a 2nd year phd student at the university of michigan studying water governance in the amazon. will have my climbing gear! also, any musicians?

File:Andrewbell.jpg

2007-05-06T15:03:29Z

Andybell: