Social Transmission Bias and the Cultural Evolution of Folk Economic Beliefs
David Hirshleifer and Siew Hong Teoh
December 2017
Abstract:
Evolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights, but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for a social explanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk economic beliefs over time and across individuals.
