Altruism and local interaction

This paper studies altruistic behavior in a model of local interaction. Individuals live on a circle and choose whether to altruistically provide a local public good. Choices are based on imitation of successful neighbors and experimentation. The public good is assumed to be less local than imitation. In the absence of experimentation altruism can prevail and coexist with egoism as long as the public good is non-global. With experimentation altruism persists in the long run only if the population is large relative to the reach of the public good. © 2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston 2012