Ronald Noë, born in Deventer, the Netherlands, in 1951. Ph.D. from Utrecht University. Professor of Behavioural Ecology at Université de Strasbourg.
Lorentz Fellow (1 September 2011 – 30 June 2012)
COOPERATION IN MULTI-PARTNER SETTINGS: BIOLOGICAL MARKETS & SOCIAL DILEMMAS
I spent my time at the NIAS on three activities (1) the organisation of a Lorentz Center – NIAS workshop, (2) the preparation of several journal papers and (3) a monograph on biological markets. The preparation of the workshop, which had an unusual format without formal talks, was time consuming notably because I designed and managed an extensive accompanying website. The workshop was entirely based on discussions in theme groups, which worked out very well. Throughout the year I worked intensively, together with the Tilburg economist Eric van Damme, on a game theoretical analysis of behavioural strategies used by monkeys while solving a complex coordination problem. I started on a book on the empirical support for ‘biological market theory’, a theory on the evolution of cooperation I proposed two decades ago. The book should be ready in two years from now and will be published by Cambridge University Press.