Robert Frank: Cornell

Note: this talk will begin at 3:30pm.

Economists since Adam Smith have insisted that competition produces the greatest good for the greatest number. But as Charles Darwin emphasized, individual and group interests do not always coincide. And when they clash, individual interests tend to trump, often resulting in wasteful arms races. The Darwinian perspective suggests that many forms of market failure that in the past have been attributed to monopoly or limited rationality are instead more plausibly the result of individual-group conflict. The Darwinian perspective also suggests, however, that many other presumed forms of market failure–such as the breakdown of cooperation when cheating cannot be detected- may be less serious than most economists believe.