How Wealth Accumulation Can Promote Cooperation
Figure 8
Asymptotic proportion, domination, and survival of cooperators, when individuals imitate others based on cumulative wealth.
We tested the robustness of our results by using cumulative payoffs instead of the current step's payoff as the basis of adaptation. That is, agents here adapt to the strategy of their most successful neighbor, as measured by the total wealth they have accumulated over time, instead of the payoff they obtained in the previous step. Panel A shows the final proportion of cooperators in the world (compare with Figure 4). Panel B shows the percentage of runs that end with more than 99% cooperators (compare with Figure 6). Panel C shows the percentage of runs in which at least 1% of cooperators survive after 1000 steps (compare with Figure 5). Note that the results basically agree with the ones, when individuals imitate others based on their payoff in the previous time step, rather than their overall wealth, as is the case here (see Figures 4B, 5B and 6B).