Ken Binmore on the Evolution of Fairness Norms

Ken Binmore, Professor of Economics at UCL, gave the 2012 Esmée Fairbairn Lecture at Lancaster University Management School. The subject of his lecture was Evolution of Fairness Norms.

[@joebloggsgogglebox]

Btw, if anybody wants to do some research on the things I just mentioned and you need a statistician, please contact me.

[@joebloggsgogglebox]

With regard to the anecdote at 13:45. Might this type of behaviour be a reason why such tribes have not progressed economically? Such social norms might offer less incentive to create new objects, inventions, or other forms of individual progress (chopping the tops off trees to make them all have equal height). Also I'd be interested to know if there are any differences in genetics that might partly explain differences in social behaviour, for example genes responsible for oxytocin production (simply testing for differences in hormone levels would be inconclusive since hormone levels vary depending on many different factors, you'd need to look at the actual DNA).