Behavior in Silico: Essays on Emergent Coordination and Institutional Constraint

Hugo Dante

Advisor: Robin D Hanson, PhD, Department of Economics

Committee Members: Daniel Houser, Robert Axtell, Kevin Corinth

Buchanan Hall, #D180
December 02, 2025, 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM

Abstract:

This dissertation studies how coordination emerges and how institutions shape outcomes across artificial and human economies. Essay 1 builds agent-based replications of classic common-pool and bargaining environments with large-language-model (LLM) agents to examine cooperation, sanctions, specialization, and learning dynamics. Essay 2 tests institutions on LLM reasoning models—evaluating how coordination protocols, bargaining rules, property rights, and governance mechanisms influence behavior under uncertainty and adversarial conditions. Essay 3 uses computationally intensive border-discontinuity and structural methods to quantify the institutional effects of local housing regulation and their macroeconomic consequences.