Coevolution of competing systems: cooperation and inhibition

The European Physical Journal B, 2010

Using a set of heterogeneous competing systems with intra-system cooperation and inter-system aggression, we show how the coevolution of the system parameters (degree of organization and conditions for aggression) depends on the rate of supply of resourcesṠ. The model consists of a number of units grouped into systems that compete for the resource S; within each system several units can be aggregated into cooperative arrangements whose size is a measure of the degree of organization in the system. Aggression takes place when the systems release inhibitors that impair the performance of other systems. Using a mean field approximation we show that i) even in the case of identical systems there are stable inhomogeneous solutions, ii) a system steadily producing inhibitors needs large perturbations to leave this regime, and iii) aggression may give comparative advantages. A discrete model is used in order to examine how the particular configuration of the units within a system determines its performance in the presence of aggression. We find that full-scale, one sided aggression is only profitable for less-organized systems, and that systems with a mixture of degrees of organization exhibit robustness against aggression. By using a genetic algorithm we find that, in terms of the full-occupation resource supply rateṠF , the coevolution of the set of systems displays the following behavior: i) forṠ <ṠF /10 aggressions are irrelevant and most systems exhibit a high degree of organization; ii) ForṠF /10 <Ṡ <ṠF /3 aggressions are frequent, making systems with a low degree of organization competitive; iii) forṠF /3 <Ṡ <ṠF /2 the systems display global evolutive transitions between periods of calm (few aggressions and high degree of organization) and periods of belligerence (frequent aggressions and low degree of organization); iv) forṠ >ṠF /2 the periods of aggression becomes progressively rarer and shorter. Finally, whenṠ approachesṠF the selection pressure on the cooperativity and the aggression between systems disappears. This kind of model can be useful to analyse the interplay of the cooperation/competition processes that can be found in some social, economic, ecological and biochemical systems; as an illustration we refer to the competition between drug-selling gangs.

Cambridge University Press, 2021

Coevolution in economic systems plays a key role in the dynamics of contemporary societies. Coevolution operates when, considering several evolving realms within a socioeconomic system, these realms mutually shape their respective innovation, replication and/or selection processes. The processes that emerge from coevolution should be analyzed as being globally codetermined in dynamic terms. The notion of coevolution appears in the literature on modern innovation economics since the neo-Schumpeterian inception four decades ago. In this Element, these antecedents are drawn on to formally clarify and develop how the coevolution notion can expand the analytical and methodological scope of evolutionary economics, allowing for further unification and advance of evolutionary subfields.

One of the biggest challenges faced in the process of integrating ecological and economical systems had been the underlying presumption that economics and ecological systems are incompatible and must not be thought of as two entities that can coexist as one. Economists think of economic systems as separate from nature, while the vast majority of Natural scientists think of natural systems as apart from people. When natural scientists do consider social phenomena, they naturally look to natural law to explain it. And so a 'line in the sand' is frequently found between cultural and environmental determinists with economists being among the cultural determinists and ecologists among the environmental determinists (Ehrlich and Raven 1964). This is a belief that many historic scientists and experts shared for a long time about world systems and science that had become part of our problem, therefore providing an explanation for the unsustainability of modern societies. One can't argue that ecological and economical systems can and must coexists and in turn coevolve. The rapid developments in the areas of science, technology and innovation (STI) are nothing but continuous evidence of this phenomenon. Coevolution simply acknowledges that the characteristics of a species' niche at any one time are predominantly other species and their characteristics. Hence, the characteristics of any one species are selected in the context of the characteristics of other species and vice versa; hence species coevolve. Norgaard (1994) illustrates how understanding the coevolutionary process can help us to understand how natural and social systems interconnect and change. Consider development as a process of coevolution between knowledge, values, organization, technology, and the environment (Figure 1.0).

AIP Conference Proceedings

The long term properties, like coexistence and extinction, are usually determined by the demographics of the competing species or other competitive advantages. In this paper we consider the effect of conspecific support on the coexistence of species. We show that, even if the competing species have the same demographics and interaction, their coexistence can be destabilized by sufficient level of conspecific support. When considering large number of species the conspecific support destabilizes the coexistance equilibrium, thus producing a pattern of extinction and varied levels of existence. Upscaling the model to continuous space variable leads to model of pattern formation via local self-activation and lateral inhibition.

Annual Review of Resource Economics, 2021

This review provides a description of common and distinct characteristics of economic and ecological systems; examples of the ways in which these characteristics can be incorporated into models adequately describing the coevolution of the two-component systems to produce a unified ecological-economic system in time, space, and appropriate scale; and a discussion of policy design when the policy maker takes into account this coevolution, along with potential biases when the coevolution is ignored. We propose the development of integrated assessment models of the coevolving systems that will embody the variety of common and distinct characteristics identified in this survey. We expect that such an approach will provide useful insights into the efficient management of coevolving ecological-economic systems.

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2002

We study a spatially homogeneous model of a market where several agents or companies compete for a wealth resource. In analogy with ecological systems the simplest case of such models shows a kind of "competitive exclusion" principle. However, the inclusion of terms corresponding for instance to "company efficiency" or to (ecological) "intracompetition" shows that, if the associated parameter overcome certain threshold values, the meaning of "strong" and "weak" companies should be redefined. Also, by adequately adjusting such a parameter, a company can induce the "extinction" of one or more of its competitors.

Elgar Encyclopedia on the Economics of Knowledge and Innovation, 2022

We define coevolution in innovative economic systems, as a key driver operating among interactive realms within an evolving complex system, in such a way that the respective innovation, replication and selection domain-specific mechanisms become mutually co-determined in a dynamic sense. We hereby develop the concept, and refer to formal implementations and empirical applications which analyze: the coevolution of technology, institutions and organizations in industrial dynamics; multisectoral coevolution and the coevolution of supply and demand in changing economies; the coevolution of market factors, technological traits, strategic options and institutional engines underlying growth and economic development; and evolutionary political economy issues from a coevolution perspective. The coevolution concept can unify methodologies (ABMs, networks and replicator dynamics) used in the analysis of innovation, and it can combine different evolutionary strands of innovation thinking (Schumpeterian economics; Institutional studies; Computational economics; Evolutionary games).

2008

We study a spatially homogeneous model of a market where several agents or companies compete for a wealth resource. In analogy with ecological systems the simplest case of such models shows a kind of “competitive exclusion” principle. However, the inclusion of terms corresponding for instance to “company efficiency” or to (ecological) “intracompetition” shows that, if the associated parameter overcome certain threshold values, the meaning of “strong” and “weak” companies should be redefined. Also, by adequately adjusting such a parameter, a company can induce the ”extinction” of one or more of its competitors.

After discussing generally models in ecology and economics that combine competition, optimization and evolution, this article concentrates on models of intraspecific competition. It demonstrates the importance of diversity/inequalities within populations of species and other environments for the sustainability of their populations, given the occurrence of environmental change. This is demonstrated both for scramble (open-access) and contest competition. Implications are drawn for human populations and for industrial organization. The possibility is raised that within industry competition may not always exist between firms in all stages of the development of a new industry. Policy implications are considered. For example, it is argued that policies designed to encourage intense business competition and maximum economic efficiency have the drawback of eventually making industries highly vulnerable to exogenous economic changes.

This paper maps a coevolutionary research agenda for ecological economics. At an epistemological level coevolution offers a powerful logic for transcending environmental and social determinisms and developing a cross-disciplinary approach in the study of socio-ecological systems. We identify four consistent stories emerging out of coevolutionary studies in ecological economics, concerning: environmental degradation and development failure in peripheral regions; the lock-in of unsustainable production–consumption patterns; the vicious cycle between human efforts to control undesirable microorganisms and the evolution of these organisms; and the adaptive advantages of other-regarding, cooperative behaviors and institutions. We identify challenges in the conceptualization of coevolutionary relationships in relation to: the interaction between different hierarchical levels of evolution; the role of space and social power; uneven rates of change and crises. We conclude with the political implications of a coevolutionary perspective based on the premises of pragmatism.