Overview

IIASA has a long and renowned tradition of using tools from systems analysis for investigating conditions facilitating the evolution of cooperation. The resulting theories are currently enjoying great attention thanks to a new wave of research in experimental economics that uses them as null models. The new approach challenges the rationality assumption underlying much of classical game theory. Recent research advances at IIASA have shed new light on the role of reputation for the evolution of indirect reciprocity, the importance of voluntary participation for sustaining high levels of cooperation, the joint evolutionary dynamics of cooperation and mobility, and on the effect of rewards and punishment in public goods games.

Over the next few years, the Program will elaborate on the evolutionary understanding of direct and indirect reciprocity in homogeneous and spatially structured populations.

Detailed research agenda

Illustration

Publications

1.	Berger U: Best Response Adaptation for Role Games. IIASA Interim Report IR-98-086 (1998).
2.	Boerlijst MC, Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Equal Pay for all Prisoners/ The Logic of Contrition. IIASA Interim Report IR-97-073 (1997). American Mathematical Society Monthly 104:303-307 (1997). Journal of Theoretical Biology 185:281-293 (1997).
3.	Brandt H, Hauert C, Sigmund K: Punishing and Abstaining for Public Goods. IIASA Interim Report IR-05-071 (2005). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 103:495-497 (2006).
4.	Brandt H, Hauert C, Sigmund K: Punishment and reputation in spatial public goods games. Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B 270:1099-1104 (2003).
5.	Brandt H, Ohtsuki H, Iwasa Y, Sigmund K: A Survey on Indirect Reciprocity. IIASA Interim Report IR-06-065 (2006). Takeuchi Y, Iwasa Y, Sato K (eds): Mathematics for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 21-51 (2007).
6.	Brandt H, Sigmund K: Indirect Reciprocity, Image-Scoring, and Moral Hazard. IIASA Interim Report IR-05-078 (2005). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102:2666-2670 (2005).
7.	Brandt H, Sigmund K: The Good, the Bad and the Discriminator - Errors in Direct and Indirect Reciprocity. IIASA Interim Report IR-05-070 (2005). Journal of Theoretical Biology 239:183-194 (2006).
8.	Brandt H, Sigmund K: The Logic of Reprobation: Assessment and Action Rules for Indirect Reciprocity. IIASA Interim Report IR-04-085 (2004). Journal of Theoretical Biology 231:475-486 (2004).
9.	Brännström NA, Dieckmann U: Evolutionary Dynamics of Altruism and Cheating Among Social Amoebas. IIASA Interim Report IR-05-039 (2005). Proceedings of the Royal Society London Series B 272:1609-1616 (2005).
10.	Colombo A, Rinaldi S: Chaos in two-party democracies. IIASA Interim Report IR-08-078 (2008). International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos 18:2133-2140 (2008).
11.	de Cara MA, Guinea F: Influence of External Information in the Minority Game. Physical Review 68:066-108 (2003).
12.	De Silva ne´e Brandt H, Sigmund K: Public good games with incentives: The role of reputation. In: Games, Groups, and the Global Good, Levin SA (ed.), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany, pp. 85-103 [ISBN: 978-3-540-85435-7] (2009).
13.	Ferrière R, Bronstein JL, Rinaldi S, Law R, Gauduchon M: Cheating and the Evolutionary Stability of Mutualisms. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 269:773-780 (2002).
14.	Ferrière R, Cazelles B, Cezilly F, Desportes JP: Predictability and Chaos in Bird Vigilant Behavior. Animal Behaviour 52:457-472 (1996).
15.	Ferrière R, Michod RE: The Evolution of Cooperation in Spatially Heterogeneous Populations. IIASA Working Paper WP-96-029 (1996). The American Naturalist 147:692-717 (1996).
16.	Ferrière R: Analysing the Mathematical Structures of Life. CNRS BioLetter 71:16-18 (1997).
17.	Ferrière R: Help and You Shall be Helped. Nature 393:517-519 (1998).
18.	Ferrière R: Mathematical Modelling in Biology. Larousse Encyclopaedia, Supplementary Volume, Paris, pp. 365-368 (1997).
19.	Hauert C, De Monte S, Hofbauer J, Sigmund K: Replicator Dynamics for Optional Public Good Games. Journal of Theoretical Biology 218:187-194 (2002).
20.	Hauert C, De Monte S, Hofbauer J, Sigmund K: Volunteering as Red Queen Mechanism for Co-operation in Public Goods Games. IIASA Interim Report IR-02-041 (2002). Science 296:1129-1132 (2002).
21.	Hauert C, De Monte S, Sigmund K, Hofbauer J: Oscillations in Optional Public Good Games. IIASA Interim Report IR-01-036 (2001).
22.	Hauert C, Haiden N, Sigmund K: The Dynamics of Public Goods. IIASA Interim Report IR-04-086 (2004). Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems - Series B 4:575-587 (2004).
23.	Hauert C, Traulsen A, Brandt H, Nowak MA, Sigmund K: The Emergence of Altruistic Punishment: Via Freedom to Enforcement. IIASA Interim Report IR-07-053 (2007). Science 613:1905-1907 (2007).
24.	Hauert C, Traulsen A, De Silva ne´e Brandt H, Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Public goods with punishment and abstaining in finite and infinite populations. IIASA Interim Report IR-08-075 (2008). Biological Theory 3:114-122 (2008).
25.	Henrich J, Bowles S, Boyd RT, Hopfensitz A, Richerson PJ, Sigmund K, Smith EA, Weissing FJ, Young HP: The cultural and genetic evolution of human cooperation. Hammerstein P (ed): Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation, MIT Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 445-468 (2003).
26.	Hofbauer J, Sigmund K: Evolutionary Game Dynamics. IIASA Interim Report IR-03-078 (2003). Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 40:479-519 (2003).
27.	Kun Á, Scheuring I: Evolution of cooperation on dynamical graphs. IIASA Interim Report IR-08-060 (2008).
28.	Kun Á, Scheuring I: Evolution of cooperation on dynamical graphs. BioSystems, 96(1):65-68 (April 2009) (2009).
29.	Law R, Bronstein JL, Ferrière R: On Mutualists and Cheaters: Plant-Insect Coevolution in Pollinating Seed-Parasite Systems. Journal of Theoretical Biology 212:373-389 (2001).
30.	Le Galliard J, Ferrière R, Dieckmann U: Adaptive Evolution of Social Traits: Origin, Trajectories, and Correlations of Altruism and Mobility. IIASA Interim Report IR-05-020 (2005). American Naturalist 165:206-224 (2005).
31.	Nakamaru M, Dieckmann U: Runaway selection for cooperation and strict-and-severe punishment. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 257(1):1-8 (7 March 2009) (2009).
32.	Nowak MA, May RM, Sigmund K: The Arithmetics of Mutual Help. Scientific American 272:50-55 (1995).
33.	Nowak MA, Page KM, Sigmund K: Fairness Versus Reason in the Ultimatum Game. IIASA Interim Report IR-00-57 (2000). Science 289:1773-1775 (2000).
34.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Biodiversity - Bacterial Game Dynamics. Nature 418:138-139 (2002).
35.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Darwin's Dynamik. Mitteilungen der DMV 4:37-44 (1998).
36.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity. IIASA Interim Report IR-05-079 (2005). Nature 437:1292-1298 (2005).
37.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity by Image Scoring/ The Dynamics of Indirect Reciprocity. IIASA Interim Report IR-98-040 (1998). Nature 393:573-577 (1998). Journal of Theoretical Biology 194:561-574 (1998).
38.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Evolutionary Dynamics of Biological Games. IIASA Interim Report IR-04-013 (2004). Science 303:793-799 (2004).
39.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Foundations of Social Evolution. Nature 395:760-761 (1998).
40.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Games on Grids. IIASA Interim Report IR-99-038 (1999). Dieckmann U, Law R, Metz JAJ (eds): The Geometry of Ecological Interactions: Simplifying Spatial Complexity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 135-150 (2000).
41.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: How Populations Cohere: Five Rules for Cooperation. IIASA Interim Report IR-07-052 (2007). May RM, McLean A (eds): Theoretical Ecology: Principles and Applications, Oxford UP, Oxford, pp. 7-16 (2007).
42.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Invasion Dynamics of the Finitely Repeated Prisoners Dilemma. Games and Economic Behaviour 11:364-390 (1995).
43.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Phage-Lift for Game Theory. Nature 398:367-368 (1999).
44.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Playing for Keeps. Science 290:281 (2000).
45.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Population dynamics in evolutionary ecology. Keinan E, Schechter I, Sela M (eds): Life Sciences for the 21st Century, John Wiley and Sons (2002).
46.	Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Unicellular Organisms and the Roots of Cooperation. Recherche 325:38-39 (1999).
47.	Piccardi C, Rinaldi S: Remarks on Excitability, Stability and Sign of Equilibria in Cooperative Systems. Systems and Control Letters 46:153-163 (2002).
48.	Posch M, Pichler A, Sigmund K: The Efficiency of Adapting Aspiration Levels. IIASA Interim Report IR-98-103 (1998). Proceedings of the Royal Society London Series B 266:1427-1435 (1999).
49.	Sigmund K, Hauert C, Nowak MA: Reward and Punishment in Minigames. IIASA Interim Report IR-01-031 (2001). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 98:10757-10762 (2001).
50.	Sigmund K, Hauert C: Altruism. Current Biology 12:270-272 (2002).
51.	Sigmund K, Nowak MA, Page KM: The Spatial Ultimatum Game. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 267:2177-2182 (2000).
52.	Sigmund K, Nowak MA: A Tale of Two Selves. IIASA Interim Report IR-00-068 (2000). Science 290:949-950 (2000).
53.	Sigmund K, Nowak MA: Evolution - Tides of Tolerance. Nature 414:403 (2001).
54.	Sigmund K, Nowak MA: Primer - Evolutionary Game Theory. Current Biology 9:503-505 (1999).
55.	Sigmund K, Nowak MA: The Natural History of Mutual Aid. Stadler F (ed): Wissenschaft als Kultur, Springer-Verlag, Vienna, pp. 259-272 (1996).
56.	Sigmund K, Szathmary E: Merging Lines and Emerging Levels. Nature 392:439-441 (1998).
57.	Sigmund K, Young HP: Introduction to Evolutionary Game Theory in Biology and Economics. Games and Economic Behaviour 11:103-110 (1996).
58.	Sigmund K: Automaten fuer wiederholte Spiele. Journal for Science of Research 11-12:187-204 (1997).
59.	Sigmund K: Complex Adaptive Systems and the Evolution of Reciprocation. IIASA Interim Report IR-98-100 (1998). Ecosystems 1:444-448 (1998).
60.	Sigmund K: Die Ökonomie der Spiele - zum 100. Geburtstag von John von Neumann. Neue Züricher Zeitung 27/28.12.2003 (2003).
61.	Sigmund K: Games Evolution Plays. Schmitt A, et al. (ed): New Aspects of Human Ethology, Plenum Press, New York, pp. 65-75 (1997).
62.	Sigmund K: John Maynard Smith and Evolutionary Game Theory. IIASA Interim Report IR-05-076 (2005). Theoretical Population Biology 68:7-10 (2005).
63.	Sigmund K: Nachlese zu den "Gödel-lectures". Internationale Mathematische Nachrichten 193:21-36 (2003).
64.	Sigmund K: Punish or Perish? Retaliation and Collaboration Among Humans. IIASA Interim Report IR-07-054 (2007). Trends in Ecology and Evolution 22:593-600 (2007).
65.	Sigmund K: Q & A. Current Biology 14:R541 (2004).
66.	Sigmund K: Sympathy and similarity: The evolutionary dynamics of cooperation. PNAS, 106(21):8405-8406 (26 May 2009) (2009).
67.	Sigmund K: The Calculus of Selfishness. Princeton University Press, NJ, USA [ISBN: 978-1-4008-3225-5] (2009).
68.	Sigmund K: The Economics of Fair Play. IIASA Interim Report IR-02-020 (2002). Scientific American 286:82-87 (2002).
69.	Sigmund K: The loitering presence of the rational actor. American Scientist, 97(6):510-513 (November-December 2009) (2009).
70.	Sigmund K: The man of the crowd. American Scientist 93:264-266 (2005).
71.	Sigmund K: The Population Dynamics of Conflict and Cooperation. IIASA Interim Report IR-98-102 (1998). Documenta Mathematica 1:487-506 (1998).
72.	Sigmund K: The Social Life of Automata. IIASA Interim Report IR-98-099 (1998). Lectures on Mathematics in the Life Sciences, American Mathematical Society 26:133-146 (1999).
73.	Sigmund K: Three’s company when seeking unanimity. Commentary in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 101:17885-17886 (2004).
74.	Skubic E: Cooperation theory of cooperative breeding. IIASA Interim Report IR-06-059 (2006).
75.	Taborsky B, Arnold C: Social experience in early ontogeny has lasting effects on social skills in cooperatively breeding cichlids. Animal Behaviour, 79(3):621-630 (March 2010) (2010).
76.	Traulsen A, Hauert C, Brandt H, Nowak MA, Sigmund K: Error rates determine the fate of evolutionary dynamics. IIASA Interim Report IR-08-076 (2008). Biological Theory 3:114-122 (2008).
77.	Uchida S, Sigmund K: The competition of assessment rules for indirect reciprocity. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 263(1):13-19 (7 March 2010) (2010).

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Last updated: 26 Sep 2007