Edited by Ronald Noe, Jan A. R. A. M. van Hooff, and Peter Hammerstein Cambridge University Press Copyright 2001 CONTENTS List of contributors vii Preface ix Acknowledgments xi 1 Games and markets: economic behaviour in humans and other animals 1 Peter Hammerstein Part I Economic behaviour in social networks 2 Social dilemmas and human behaviour 23 Elinor Ostrom 3 Cooperation and collective action in animal behaviour 42 Charles L. Nunn and Rebecca J. Lewis 4 Conflict, reconciliation and negotiation in non-human primates: the value of long-term relationships 67 Jan A. R. A. M. van Hooff Part II Biological markets 5 Biological markets: partner choice as the driving force behind the evolution of mutualisms 93 Ronald Noe 6 The utility of grooming in baboon troops 119 Louise Barrett and S. Peter Henzi 7 The cleaner fish market 146 Redouan Bshary 8 Modeling interspecific mutualisms as biological markets 173 Jason D. Hoeksema and Mark W. Schwartz Part III Mating markets 9 Human mate choice strategies 187 Boguslaw Pawlowski and Robin I. M. Dunbar 10 How does mate choice contribute to exaggeration and diversity in sexual characters? 203 Andrew Pomiankowski and Yoh Iwasa 11 Information about sperm competition and the economics of sperm allocation 221 Geoffrey A. Parker and Mike A. Baeb 12 The economics of male mating strategies 245 Robin I. M. Dunbar Index 270 FROM BACK COVER: Since the development of game theory, the analysis of animal behaviour using the theories of economics has become a growing field of biological research in which models of games and markets play an important role. Studies of sexual selection, interspecific mutualism and intraspecific cooperation show that individuals exchange commodities to their mutual benefit; the exchange values of commodities are a source of conflict, and behavioural mechanisms such as partner choice and contest between competitors determines the composition of trading pairs or groups. These 'biological markets' can be examined to gain a better understanding of the underlying principles of evolutionary ecology. In this volume scientists from different disciplines combine insights from economics, evolutionary biology and the social sciences to look at comparative aspects of economic behaviour in humans and other animals. Aimed primarily at evolutionary biologists and anthropologists, it will also appeal to psychologists and economists interested in an evolutionary approach. Ronald Noe is professor of Ethology at the Louis-Pasteur University at Strasbourg, France and holds a post at the Max-Planck-lnstitut Seewiesen, Germany. His main research interest is the behavioural ecology of primates and in 1991 he founded the Tai Monkey Project in the Tai National Park, Ivory Coast. He has been editor of the journal Ethology since 1997. Jan A.R.A.M.van Hooff is professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Utrecht. His research focuses on the social behaviour and organisation of primates and eusocial insects. He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Scientific Council of the Jean-Marie Delwart Foundation, Belgium. Peter Hammerstein is professor in Organismic Evolution at the Theoretical Biology Laboratory of the Humboldt University, Berlin. Besides being a biologist he has a background in game theory and mathematical economics. His main research interest is in the evolutionary analysis of conflict and cooperation at the level of genes and organisms. PREFACE The constraints of life force every organism to behave economically. The study of economic behaviour is therefore not limited to 'economics'. Scientific disciplines that concentrate on other aspects of human behaviour, such as psychology, sociology and anthropology, have to pay close attention to the economic decisions that drive human behaviour. The same is true for biological disciplines in which strategic options of individual organisms play a central role, notably ethology, behavioural ecology and evolutionary ecology. In order to determine in how far a behavioural strategy is 'economical', it has to be compared to some ideal norm: the strategy that would yield maximum payoff. In economics this norm is set by the strategy of a hypothetical 'super-rational' individual. For most of us the term 'super-rational' has a connotation of 'very intelligent'; a strategy achieved by the use of superior cognitive capacities. Evolutionary biologists have realised, however, that even the dimmest of organisms, such as fungi and flatworms, often use 'super-rational strategies', because a process of selection running over a vast number of generations can shape the behaviour of every species to near perfection, as long as the circumstances in which it lives change slow enough compared to the rate of evolution. There lies the common ground between biology and economics: while Adam Smith's human producers and consumers are driven by the 'invisible hand' of self-interest, Charles Darwin's living organisms are driven by the selection for maximising individual fitness. The present volume gives a number of examples of the common grounds on which economics, biology and the social sciences meet. In his introductory chapter Peter Hammerstein shows that there are striking parallels between the use of game theory in economics and evolutionary biology, although the fields were originally developed largely independently. In Part I we see how humans as well as non-humans can be caught in 'social dilemma's', situations in which the individual has to choose between a certain, but small profit extracted from a common pool, and an uncertain, but eventually larger profit reaped after an initial investment in that common pool. In the introduction of economics textbooks one can often find a statement like: 'Markets consist of producers and consumers of goods or services.' The chapters in Part II show that such 'markets' can be found everywhere in nature. Examples range from the exchange of services among members of primate groups to interactions between different species of fish and trade between fungi and plants. The idea to apply the principles deduced by economists for human markets to cooperative and mutualistic interactions in biology is relatively recent, but the idea of a 'mating market' has been around ever since Darwin identified sexual selection as a powerful motor of evolution. Part III concentrates on the reproductive behaviour of humans and other animals. The title of the section, 'mating markets', seems warranted, because reproductive decisions are often governed by economic principles. WHERE TO ORDER: Cambridge University Press 40 West 20th Street New York, NY 10011-4211, USA Phone: 1-800-872-7423 Fax: 914-937-4712 Web site: http://www.cambridge.org Price: $80.00(Hardbound) ISBN: 0-521-65014-3
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