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Peer punishment across payoff equivalent public good and common pool resource experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2025

David C. Kingsley
David C. Kingsley*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 1 University Ave., Lowell, MA 01854, USA
*
e-mail: david_kingsley@uml.edu
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Abstract

This paper investigates the effectiveness of peer punishment in non-linear social dilemmas and replicates Cason and Gangadharan (Exp Econ 18:66–88, 2015). The contribution of this replication is that cooperation is quantified across payoff equivalent, strategically symmetric public good and common pool resource experiments. Results suggest that the cooperation-inducing effect of peer punishment is statistically equivalent across conditions. Despite this increase in cooperation, earnings are significantly lower than in the absence of punishment. Institutional features which improve the effectiveness of peer punishment in linear public good experiments may, similarly, make self-governance possible in more complex social dilemmas.

Keywords

Public goodCommon pool resourceExperimentCooperationSelf-governance

JEL classification

H41: Public Goods D70: General C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Journal of the Economic Science Association , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , December 2015 , pp. 197 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Economic Science Association 2015

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40881-015-0017-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

References

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