[GSDI Legal Econ] endowment effect - it's mine I tell you

[Kate Lance]

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11579107
Endowment effect - it's mine I tell you
Mankind’s inner chimpanzee refuses to let go. This matters to everything from economics to law
[Economist, June 19, 2008]
The Endowment effect explains evolutionary origins to possessiveness. Might this be a factor in limited data sharing?  
Many who argue for data sharing envision data sharing flowing towards an efficient arrangement; rationality in human behavior is assumed. The endowment effect is only one of many forms of "irrationality" observed by behavioral and experimental economists. This body of research suggests that if contract law and regulations governing market behavior are founded on assumptions of rational behavior, then it behooves us to better understand in what ways human behavior predictably diverges from that assumption. 

These days, humans have contracts, rights and other ways of enforcing bargains. Animal societies don't have these mechanisms. As Adam Smith observed in the "Wealth of Nations", "nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with a dog."


      
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