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We demonstrate by mathematical analysis and systematic computer simulations that redistribution can lead to sustainable growth in a society. The human capital dynamics of each agent is described by a stochastic multiplicative process which,…
An individually costly act that benefits all group members is a public good. Natural selection favors individual contribution to public goods only when some benefit to the individual offsets the cost of contribution. Problems of sex ratio,…
Everyone wants clean air, peace and other public goods but is tempted to freeride on others' efforts. The usual way out of this dilemma is to impose norms, maintain reputations and incentivize individuals to contribute. In situations of…
We report the results of a game-theoretic experiment with human players who solve the problems of increasing complexity by cooperating in groups of increasing size. Our experimental environment is set up to make it complicated for players…
Efficient allocation and use of limited resources are fundamental to advancing collective welfare and achieving long-term societal sustainability. This challenge involves not only how policymakers distribute scarce resources among…
In biology and ecology, individuals or communities of individuals living in unpredictable environments often alternate between different evolutionary strategies to spread and reduce risks. Such behavior is commonly referred to as…
Microbes providing public goods are widespread in nature despite running the risk of being exploited by free-riders. However, the precise ecological factors supporting cooperation are still puzzling. Following recent experiments, we…
We design mechanisms for maintaining public goods which require periodic in-kind contributions, motivated by incentives problems facing crowd-sourced recommender systems. Utilitarian welfare is maximized by redistributive policies which are…
The evolution and maintenance of cooperation fascinated researchers for several decades. Recently, theoretical models and experimental evidence show that costly punishment may facilitate cooperation in human societies, but may not be used…
Social mobilization often fails not for a lack of collective interest, but because of fierce competition between rival movements for the same limited pool of participants. We generalize the classic threshold model of collective behavior to…
Assembling optimal microbial communities is key for various applications in biofuel production, agriculture, and human health. Finding the optimal community is challenging because the number of possible communities grows exponentially with…
Understanding cooperation in social systems is challenging because the ever-changing rules that govern societies interact with individual actions, resulting in intricate collective outcomes. In virtual-world experiments, we allowed people…
Properly coordinating cooperation is relevant for resolving public good problems such as clean energy and environmental protection. However, little is known about how individuals can coordinate themselves for a certain level of cooperation…
We study a dynamical model of a population of cooperators and defectors whose actions have long-term consequences on environmental "commons" - what we term the "resource". Cooperators contribute to restoring the resource whereas defectors…
While the benefits of common and public goods are shared, they tend to be scarce when contributions are provided voluntarily. Failure to cooperate in the provision or preservation of these goods is fundamental to sustainability challenges,…
Shared resources enhance productivity yet at the same time provide channels for biological and digital contamination, turning physical or digital hygiene into a cooperation dilemma prone to free-riding. Here we introduce a game of…
The sustainable use of common-pool resources (CPRs) is a major environmental governance challenge because of their possible over-exploitation. Research in this field has overlooked the feedback between user decisions and resource dynamics.…
Environmental variability greatly influences the eco-evolutionary dynamics of a population, i.e. it affects how its size and composition evolve. Here, we study a well-mixed population of finite and fluctuating size whose growth is limited…
When people collaborate, they expect more in return than a simple sum of their efforts. This observation is at the heart of the so-called public goods game, where the participants' contributions are multiplied by an $r$ synergy factor…
Cooperative behaviors are defined as the production of common goods benefitting all members of the community at the producer's cost. They could seem to be in contradiction with natural selection, as non-cooperators have an increased fitness…