Will Equity Evolve? - An Indirect Evolutionary Approach

It has been claimed that people often prefer equity-like considerations and tend to ignore strategic aspects in fair division problems. Here, this is explored by analyzing whether or not such behavioral disposition is evolutionary stable. The answer however is ambiguous: Both, reacting to and neglecting strategic aspects can be evolutionarily stable strategies when power discrepancies are minor. Equity, in particular, is restricted to situations where structural asymmetries are subtle.