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RATIONALITY, EVOLUTION, AND ACQUISITIVENESS
Author(s) -
Demsetz Harold
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
economic inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1465-7295
pISSN - 0095-2583
DOI - 10.1111/j.1465-7295.1996.tb01390.x
Subject(s) - rationality , axiom , economics , linkage (software) , ecological rationality , meaning (existential) , mathematical economics , bounded rationality , positive economics , section (typography) , neoclassical economics , microeconomics , epistemology , computer science , philosophy , mathematics , biochemistry , chemistry , geometry , gene , operating system
The first part of this paper discusses Alchian's classic 1950 article “Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory” and argues against the notion that it is easy to eliminate rationality from economic behavior by appealing to evolution as a substitute. The second section discusses rationality and develops a specc meaning for this term that distinguishes it from the axioms of choice found in economic theory. In the final section, I use this definition and link rationality to a behavioral propensity almost unique to the human species—acquisitiveness, concluding from this linkage that acquisitiveness can speed up the evolution of intelligence.