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THE EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS OF FINANCIAL PRACTICES
Author(s) -
Sethi Rajiv
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
metroeconomica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.256
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-999X
pISSN - 0026-1386
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-999x.1995.tb00381.x
Subject(s) - stylized fact , rationality , evolutionary dynamics , economics , financial market , dynamics (music) , population , distribution (mathematics) , basis (linear algebra) , econometrics , microeconomics , mathematical economics , finance , mathematics , macroeconomics , psychology , mathematical analysis , pedagogy , demography , geometry , sociology , political science , law
ABSTRACT This paper presents a model in which financial practices are chosen by decentralized units on the basis of expectations regarding financial market conditions, while the probability distribution governing market conditions itself depends on the choices made. If all agents are unboundedly rational, there is a unique equilibrium in which expectations are self‐fulfilling. The assumption of universal unbounded rationality is relaxed by introducing an optimization cost, which leads to the possibility that optimizers may not have a sufficiently great evolutionary advantage to eliminate nonoptimizers entirely. In this case behavioral heterogeneity can persist even in the long run. For certain classes of probability distributions governing financial conditions, the evolutionary dynamics of population composition can help explain a number of stylized facts regarding the dynamics of financial practices which have hitherto been explained on the basis of learning dynamics or systematic cognitive biases.