Evolution of Time Preference by Natural Selection: Comment

Evolution of Time Preference by Natural Selection: Comment

We reexamine Alan R. Rogers’ (1994) analysis of the biological basis of the rate of time preference. Although his basic insight concerning the derivation of the utility function holds up, the functional form he uses does not generate equilibrium evolutionary behavior. Moreover, Rogers relies upon an interior solution for a particular kind of intergenerational transfer. We show such interior sol...

Evolution by Natural Selection

The first published expression of the theory of evolution by natural selection was printed July 1, 1858, in the Journal of the Linnaean Society of London in the form of two essays: one by Charles Darwin and one by Alfred Russel Wallace. These two essays, along with Darwin's preliminary Sketch of 1842 and his Essay of 1844 (neither of which were published until 1909), and a foreword by Sir Gavin...

Conditions for Evolution by Natural Selection*

THE EVOLUTION OF TIME PREFERENCE WITH AGGREGATE UNCERTAINTY Running head: The Evolution of Time Preference

We examine the evolutionary foundations of intertemporal preferences. When all the risk affecting survival and reproduction is idiosyncratic, evolution selects for agents who maximize the discounted sum of expected utility, discounting at the sum of the population growth rate and the mortality rate. Aggregate uncertainty concerning survival rates leads to discount rates that exceed the sum of p...

Natural selection in chemical evolution.

We propose that chemical evolution can take place by natural selection if a geophysical process is capable of heterotrophic formation of liposomes that grow at some base rate, divide by external agitation, and are subject to stochastic chemical avalanches, in the absence of nucleotides or any monomers capable of modular heredity. We model this process using a simple hill-climbing algorithm, and...