Discussion paper
DP17348 How Economics can Contribute to Evolutionary Perspectives on the Family
We outline the great potential of economics to contribute to evolution-based perspectives on marriage and the family. The main argument is that economics can be understood as the study of competition -- how the allocation of scarce resources is mediated by potentially complex forms of social interaction and conflicts of interest -- and that competition for resources is a central component of evolutionary explanations. Our argument is broad, but we illustrate it by focusing on conceptual and empirical approaches to a topic of interest to both economists and evolutionary scholars: polygyny.
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