Economics 286W
Honors Seminar
Spring
2003
Tuesdays 3:30-5
HRM 303
R. N. Langlois
322
Monteith X63472
Office
hours MT 1:30-3 or by appointment
Assignment 4
Economics and evolutionary biology have long had a close relationship. Intellectual historians have noted that economists like Adam Smith and T. R. Malthus influenced the thinking of Charles Darwin. And economists frequently invoke evolutionary ideas to explain economic phenomena, while biologists often use economic reasoning to support hypotheses about evolution. In our next presentation, Christian Zimmermann will provide an example of the latter: he will present a paper he is working on that tries to use economic reasoning to explain the biological phenomenon of menopause.
Your assignment is the same as his. The online sources below provide some background on the arguments over the evolutionary status of menopause. Implicitly – and sometimes explicitly – the articles also invoke economic ideas. Discuss the issues involved with an eye toward generating an economic explanation of menopause. You might also want to take sides in the implicit debate between Diamond and Packer. But your primary goal is to suggest how economic reasoning might shed light on the issue.
·
Nathalie Angier, “Theorists See Survival Value
in Menopause,” The New York Times, September 16, 1997.
·
Jared Diamond, “Why Women Change,” Discover
Magazine, July 1996, pages 130-138.
· Craig Packer, “Why menopause?” Natural History, vol. 107 no. 6, p. 24, July-August 1998.
Due: April 1.
