TY - JOUR
T1 - Feedback, punishment and cooperation in public good experiments
AU - Nikiforakis, Nikos
N1 - Funding Information:
✩ I would like to thank two anonymous referees, Marco Casari, John Creedy, Dirk Engelmann, Lata Gangadharan, Simon Loertscher, Hans-Theo Normann, Steve Tucker and Anne van den Nouweland for their comments on the paper. I would also like to thank Tim Cason, Dan Friedman, Simon Gächter, Jacob Goeree, Charles Noussair, Charlie Plott and Louis Putterman for insightful discussions. The paper benefited from comments made at the 2007 International Meeting of the European Economic Association in Rome, and seminars at Maastricht University, the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), the University of East Anglia, the University of Melbourne, and the University of New South Wales. Funding from ESRC (project RES-000-22-0948) and the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne is gratefully acknowledged. This article is dedicated to the memory of Constantine Zachariou. * Fax: +61 38344 5104. E-mail address: [email protected].
PY - 2010/3
Y1 - 2010/3
N2 - A number of studies have shown that peer punishment can sustain cooperation in public good games. This paper shows that the format used to give subjects feedback is critical for the efficacy of punishment. Providing subjects with information about the earnings of their peers leads to significantly less cooperation and lower efficiency compared to a treatment in which subjects receive information about the contributions of their peers. This is despite the fact that the feedback format does not affect incentives. The data suggest that this happens because the feedback format acts as a coordination device which influences the contribution standards that groups establish.
AB - A number of studies have shown that peer punishment can sustain cooperation in public good games. This paper shows that the format used to give subjects feedback is critical for the efficacy of punishment. Providing subjects with information about the earnings of their peers leads to significantly less cooperation and lower efficiency compared to a treatment in which subjects receive information about the contributions of their peers. This is despite the fact that the feedback format does not affect incentives. The data suggest that this happens because the feedback format acts as a coordination device which influences the contribution standards that groups establish.
KW - Altruistic punishment
KW - Cooperation
KW - Feedback format
KW - Peer punishment
KW - Public good game
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U2 - 10.1016/j.geb.2009.09.004
DO - 10.1016/j.geb.2009.09.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:75349109901
SN - 0899-8256
VL - 68
SP - 689
EP - 702
JO - Games and Economic Behavior
JF - Games and Economic Behavior
IS - 2
ER -