| View Larger Image | Reciprocity: An Economics of Social Relations (Federico Caffè Lectures) | Hardcoverby Serge-Christophe Kolm (Author)
| List Price: | $99.00 | | Price: | $91.49 | | You Save: | $7.51 (8%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | Cambridge University Press | | Edition: | 1st Edition | | Page Count: | 408 Pages | | Publication Date: | July 07, 2008 | | Sales Rank: | 441,740st |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Reciprocity is the basis of social relations. It permits a peaceful and free society in which people and rights are respected. The essence of families and communities, it also enables the working of markets and organizations, while correcting their main failures. Reciprocity is also a basis of politics, and it justifies social policies. Although the importance of reciprocity has been widely recognized in other social sciences, it has, until recently, been somewhat ignored in economic analysis. Over the past three decades, economic theorist and moral philosopher Serge-Christophe Kolm has been at the forefront of research into the economics of the deepest aspects of societies. In Reciprocity, he provides a unique in-depth analysis of the motives, conducts, and effects of reciprocal relationships. In doing this, he explains crucial functionings of society and its economy, and the ways in which they can be improved. This book should be read by economists, sociologists, philosophers, and anyone concerned with understanding the economy of social relationships and its far-reaching consequences. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 3 reviews)
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Impressive and illuminating. by MARINIER Pierre  5 Stars
February 13, 2009
I am enthusiastic about this book. It is the first to explain reciprocity and to show its various forms and consequences in all types of human interaction. An unprecedented alliance of deep psychological analysis, innovative economic modeling and perceptive observation. Social science at its best.
An epoch-making work.
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A splendid book by Christine Andre 5 Stars
January 31, 2009
A splendid book. A deep, subtle and rigorous analysis of social relations. Indispensable for understanding them. Invaluable for improving them.
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Unrewarding treatment of an important topic by Herbert Gintis (Northampton, MA USA)  1 Stars
December 02, 2008
Serge-Christophe Kolm is Professor and Director at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris, and a prolific author of books and articles that span economics, sociology, and philosophy. Most of his publications are in French, but Justice and Equity was translated into English and published by MIT Press in 1997. He is also coeditor, with Jean Mercier Ythier and Louis-André Gérard-Varet of a highly regarded two-volume compendium, "The Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism, and Reciprocity" (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2002).
Kolm has been writing about reciprocity for many years. I remember vividly a talk he gave on the subject at a Paris conference in 1975, long before economists became interested in the topic. Kolm has a strong background in Anglo-American mathematical economics, and early in his career he published two seminal articles on inequality indices: "Unequal inequalities, Journal of Economic Theory 12 (1976) pp. 416-442; and "Unequal inequalities II," Journal of Economic Theory 13 (1976), pp. 82-111. At some point, Kolm became interested in philosophical psychology, publishing "Le Bonheur , Liberté, Bouddhisme profond et Modernité" (Happiness-Freedom (Deep Buddhism and Modernity)) in 1982.
The occasion for this book was an invitation by the University La Sapienza, in Rome, to deliver the Federico Caffè lectures of 2003, and consists of a compilation of three decades of work on reciprocity by the author. The book is extremely repetitive, and virtually the complete analysis is presented in the first twenty pages. "Reciprocity," says Kolm (p. 1), "is treating other people as other people treat you." This is, of course, a descriptive rather than a normative criterion, and contrasts sharply with the Kantian categorical imperative, which holds that one ought to treat others as one would have them treat oneself. However, it is often quite accurate as to how pople in fact treat one another.
Kolm claims that there are two major types of reciprocity, which he terms "balancing," or "matching" reciprocity, on the one hand, and "liking reciprocity" on the other. In matching reciprocity, one feels obligated to return as good as one has received from others, and in liking reciprocity, one has warm feelings for (or against) others based on what one has received of them, and one returns the favor in an emotionally satisfying manner. Note that both of these forms of reciprocity are essentially other-regarding, because the reciprocator does not consider the net personal material gain derived from the act of reciprocating, but rather reciprocates for either deontological (duty) or utilitarian (pleasure) reasons. Kolm recognizes self-regarding forms of reciprocity as well, especially what he calls "sequential reciprocity," according to which one reciprocates with the expectation that this will foster long-term mutually beneficial interactions. Finally, Kolm recognizes "generalized reciprocity," in which A is kind to B, who reciprocates not by being kind to A, but rather by being kind to a third party C. Although Kolm does not do so, it can be shown that under the appropriate informational and payoff conditions, such generalized reciprocity (usually called "indirect reciprocity") can be sustained by self-regarding agents, although these conditions are quite stringent (Karthik Panchanathan and Robert Boyd, "A Tale of Two Defectors: The Importance of Standing for Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity", Journal of Theoretical Biology 224 (2003):115-126; and "Indirect Reciprocity can Stabilize Cooperation Without the Second-order Free Rider Problem", Nature 432 (2004):499-502).
Despite the La Sapienza venue, this book is aimed toward the lay reader, leaving mathematical formalism for a few short and undemanding chapters towards the end of the book. These chapters contribute little to his argument because they are extremely elementary applications of choice theory and deal with one-shot interactions in a situation where repeated game theory, and in particular issues surrounding the Folk Theorem, deserve salience. Kolm refers to a number of recent contributions of behavioral game theory, but never describes experimental results with enough detail to gain insight into phenomena involved. Nor does he explain why he treats this vibrant and rapidly growing field with such superficiality. Even more surprisingly, for a lay audience, he does not present the arguments of those researchers or schools of thought that disagree with his interpretation.
For example, he asserts that "The existence of any peaceful and free society...rests essentially on reciprocity." (p. 15). For this he provides not a slender reed of prove, and does not deal with either standard economic or biological theory, both of which stoutly deny the importance of either balanced or liking reciprocity, and rely heavily on sequential reciprocity alone. This is because both traditional biological and economic theory assume that individuals are self-regarding, either because natural selection requires this, or because economics is the study of rational self-interested behavior. I fully agree with Kolm's stress on other-regarding reciprocity, but I cannot accept the atmosphere of obiter dicta that pervades his treatment of reciprocity.
I am aware that Kolm is well regarded by some of the most perceptive social scientists of our age, including Jon Elster, who calls Kolm "one of our most creative and profound economists of our day" in his book-jacket blurb. By contrast, I find Kolm superficial and supercilious, expected the reader to subscribe to his views not through the presentation of evidence and analytical argument, but merely because Kolm says that it is so. The distain for the behavioral science literature on the subject is astounding. There is no sustained discussion of the public goods game, of the free rider problem, of in-group vs. out-group reciprocal behavior, or of the relationship between reciprocity in humans and in other species. While Kolm does mention in passing some behavioral economists who have worked on the issue of reciprocity, such greats as the political scientist Elinor Ostrom and the social psychologist Toshio Yamagishi are barely touched upon if at all.
In a book for the lay reader, avoiding complex mathematical expressions is a clear plus, and Kolm does achieve this. However, one can explain the structure of analytical models of reciprocity without the mathematical apparatus, and one can explain clearly the meaning of experimental results without sophisticated game-theoretical concepts, and this Kolm does not even bother to do.
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