Peer punishment with third-party approval in a social dilemma game

Tan, Fangfang and Xiao, Erte (2011): Peer punishment with third-party approval in a social dilemma game.

Abstract

This paper investigates how punishment promotes cooperation when the punishment enforcer is a third party independent of the implicated parties who propose the punishment. In a prisoner's dilemma experiment, we find an independent third party vetoes not only punishment to the cooperators but punishment to the defectors as well. Compared with the case when the implicated parties are allowed to punish each other, both the cooperation rate and the earnings are lower when the enforcement of punishment requires approval from an independent third party.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Social dilemmas; third party; punishment; cooperation; experiment
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C92 - Laboratory, Group Behavior; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C72 - Noncooperative Games

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