2,767 research outputs found
Cooperation, Punishment, Emergence of Government, and the Tragedy of Authorities
Under the conditions prevalent in the late Pleistocene epoch (small
hunter-gatherer groups and frequent inter-group conflicts), coevolution
of gene-related behavior and culturally transmitted group-level institutions
provides a plausible explanation for the parochial altruistic and reciprocator
traits of most modern humans. When, with the agricultural
revolution, societies became larger and more complex, the collective
nature of the monitoring and punishment of norm violators was no
longer effective. This led to the emergence of new institutions of governance
and social hierarchies. The transition from an egalitarian society
and the acceptance of the new institutions may have been possible only
if, in the majority of the population, the reciprocator trait had become
an internalized norm. However, the new ruling class has its own dynamics,
which in turn may lead to a new social crisis. Using a simple model
inspired by previous work by Bowles and Gintis, these effects are studied
here
An econophysics approach to analyse uncertainty in financial markets: an application to the Portuguese stock market
In recent years there has been a closer interrelationship between several
scientific areas trying to obtain a more realistic and rich explanation of the
natural and social phenomena. Among these it should be emphasized the
increasing interrelationship between physics and financial theory. In this
field the analysis of uncertainty, which is crucial in financial analysis, can
be made using measures of physics statistics and information theory, namely the
Shannon entropy. One advantage of this approach is that the entropy is a more
general measure than the variance, since it accounts for higher order moments
of a probability distribution function. An empirical application was made using
data collected from the Portuguese Stock Market.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, presented in the conference Next Sigma-Phi 200
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