“石器时代”的规则

The Rules of The Stone Age

制度变迁过程是个体博弈的结果吗？在引进政治过程之后，制度变迁的效率假说是否依然成立？本文试图通过对一个网络游戏“石器时代”的观察和研究来回答这两个问题。“石器时代”是目前最流行的网络游戏，它通过模拟原始人类的生产和交换活动成功地吸引了大批玩家。我们的观察表明，玩家通过建立各种组织来内化无政府条件下的搭便车、欺诈以及恃强凌弱等问题，因此制度的演进和组织的建立和演进分不开；同时，制度演进的方向和效率的改进是一致的。

Is institution the equilibrium result of individual gaming? Does the efficiency hypothesis hold when political process is introduced into institutional change? This paper tries to answer these two questions by observing and studying an Internet game The Stone Age that imitates the production and exchange in the Stone Age.After several months of observation, we have found that the players rely heavily on organizations to internalize the costs associated with free-riding,cheating and bullying that are typically found when there is not an effective government.In addition,the evolution of the rules that have spontaneously emerged in the game generally conforms to the prediction of the efficiency hypothesis.