2014/11/18 by Kartik Ahuja, Ahuja, Kartik, Simpson Zhang +3
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #Economic theories and models #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1411.5107
openalex publication_date 2014/11/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Substantial empirical research has shown that the level of individualism vs.\ncollectivism is one of the most critical and important determinants of societal\ntraits, such as economic growth, economic institutions and health conditions.\nBut the exact nature of this impact has thus far not been well understood in an\nanalytical setting. In this work, we develop one of the first theoretical\nmodels that analytically studies the impact of individualism-collectivism on\nthe society. We model the growth of an individual's welfare (wealth, resources\nand health) as depending not only on himself, but also on the level of\ncollectivism, i.e. the level of dependence on the rest of the individuals in\nthe society, which leads to a co-evolutionary setting. Based on our model, we\nare able to predict the impact of individualism-collectivism on various\nsocietal metrics, such as average welfare, average life-time, total population,\ncumulative welfare and average inequality. We analytically show that\nindividualism has a positive impact on average welfare and cumulative welfare,\nbut comes with the drawbacks of lower average life-time, lower total population\nand higher average inequality.\n