2023/10/24 by Enrique Urbano Arellano, Xinyang Wang, Arellano, Enrique Urbano +1
Decision Sciences · Social Sciences · #Auction Theory and Applications #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #FOS: Economics and business #Game Theory and Applications #Theoretical Economics (econ.TH)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.15861
openalex publication_date 2023/10/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the evolution of behavioral rules in environments with multiple contexts. Agents copy rules used by better-performing peers in the same context and apply them across contexts. Multiple contexts turn discrete-time imitation dynamics into a context-weighted social choice problem: the population converges to consensus if and only if some rule is a Condorcet winner; otherwise, persistent non-convergence can occur. Among same-context imitation protocols, imitate-if-better uniquely minimizes envy. The framework provides a new account of belief evolution, characterizing when imitation selects rational expectations and showing how persistent belief and consumption fluctuations can arise in stationary environments.