IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v66y2008i3-4p669-686.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An experimental investigation of Hobbesian jungles

Author

Listed:
  • Powell, Benjamin
  • Wilson, Bart J.

Abstract

Hobbes's state of nature serves as the analytical starting point for much of what economists have written on anarchy and the formation of government. Unfortunately little historical evidence exists about how men behaved in a "state of nature", if such a situation ever even existed. We conducted a laboratory experiment to create a Hobbesian state of nature and observe the level of economic efficiency subjects achieve. We also investigate Buchanan's conjecture that people would unanimously agree to a social contract against theft.

Suggested Citation

  • Powell, Benjamin & Wilson, Bart J., 2008. "An experimental investigation of Hobbesian jungles," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(3-4), pages 669-686, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:66:y:2008:i:3-4:p:669-686
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-2681(07)00033-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoffman Elizabeth & McCabe Kevin & Shachat Keith & Smith Vernon, 1994. "Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 346-380, November.
    2. Martin C. McGuire & Mancur Olson, 1998. "The Economics of Autocracy and Majority Rule: The Invisible Hand and the Use of Force," International Economic Association Series, in: Silvio Borner & Martin Paldam (ed.), The Political Dimension of Economic Growth, chapter 3, pages 38-73, Palgrave Macmillan.
    3. Bush, Winston C. & Mayer, Lawrence S., 1974. "Some implications of anarchy for the distribution of property," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 401-412, August.
    4. Todd L. Cherry & Peter Frykblom & Jason F. Shogren, 2002. "Hardnose the Dictator," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1218-1221, September.
    5. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753.
    6. Charles Anderton & John Carter, 1996. "An Experimental Test of a Predator-Prey Model of Conflict," Working Papers 9603, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    7. Vernon L. Smith, 1998. "The Two Faces of Adam Smith," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 2-19, July.
    8. Cowen, Tyler, 1992. "Law as a Public Good: The Economics of Anarchy," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(2), pages 249-267, October.
    9. R. Mark Isaac & James M. Walker, 1988. "Group Size Effects in Public Goods Provision: The Voluntary Contributions Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 179-199.
    10. Bryan Caplan & Edward Stringham, 2003. "Networks, Law, and the Paradox of Cooperation," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 16(4), pages 309-326, December.
    11. Carter, John R. & Anderton, Charles H., 2001. "An experimental test of a predator-prey model of appropriation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 83-97, May.
    12. Duffy, John & Kim, Minseong, 2005. "Anarchy in the laboratory (and the role of the state)," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 297-329, March.
    13. Durham, Yvonne & Hirshleifer, Jack & Smith, Vernon L., 2008. "The Paradox of Power," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 127-137, Elsevier.
    14. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    15. Andreoni, James A & Miller, John H, 1993. "Rational Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(418), pages 570-585, May.
    16. Smith, Vernon L, 1982. "Microeconomic Systems as an Experimental Science," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 923-955, December.
    17. repec:tiu:tiutis:fe79a9d2-e9e3-4dbc-9539-cdece886993d is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1995. "Anarchy and Its Breakdown," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(1), pages 26-52, February.
    19. Gordon Tullock, 1985. "Adam Smith and the Prisoners' Dilemma," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(Supplemen), pages 1073-1081.
    20. Durham, Yvonne & Hirshleifer, Jack & Smith, Vernon L, 1998. "Do the Rich Get Richer and the Poor Poorer? Experimental Tests of a Model of Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 970-983, September.
    21. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, 2004. "Blood, Baath and Beyond: the Constitutional Dilemma of Iraq," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 119(1_2), pages 13-30, April.
    22. Smith,Vernon L., 2005. "Bargaining and Market Behavior," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521021487.
    23. Hoffman, Elizabeth & Spitzer, Matthew L, 1982. "The Coase Theorem: Some Experimental Tests," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 73-98, April.
    24. Garfinkel,Michelle R. & Skaperdas,Stergios (ed.), 1996. "The Political Economy of Conflict and Appropriation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521560634.
    25. Stefan Voigt, 1999. "Breaking with the Notion of Social Contract: Constitutions as Based on Spontaneously Arisen Institutions," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 283-300, October.
    26. Camerer, Colin & Weigelt, Keith, 1988. "Experimental Tests of a Sequential Equilibrium Reputation Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(1), pages 1-36, January.
    27. Cowen, Tyler & Sutter, Daniel, 1999. "The Costs of Cooperation," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 12(2), pages 161-173, November.
    28. Friedman, David D., 1994. "Law as a Private Good: A Response to Tyler Cowen on the Economics of Anarchy," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 319-327, October.
    29. Horan, Richard D. & Bulte, Erwin & Shogren, Jason F., 2005. "How trade saved humanity from biological exclusion: an economic theory of Neanderthal extinction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 1-29, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adam Smith & David Skarbek & Bart Wilson, 2012. "Anarchy, groups, and conflict: an experiment on the emergence of protective associations," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(2), pages 325-353, February.
    2. Benjamin Powell & Edward Stringham, 2009. "Public choice and the economic analysis of anarchy: a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 503-538, September.
    3. Konstantin Chatziathanasiou & Svenja Hippel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2021. "Property, redistribution, and the status quo: a laboratory study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 919-951, September.
    4. Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Reuben, Ernesto & van Winden, Frans, 2017. "Decisiveness, peace, and inequality in games of conflict," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 216-229.
    5. Taylor Jaworski & Bart J. Wilson, 2013. "Go West Young Man: Self‐Selection and Endogenous Property Rights," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(4), pages 886-904, April.
    6. Charles Anderton & John Carter, 1996. "An Experimental Test of a Predator-Prey Model of Conflict," Working Papers 9603, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    7. Anderton,Charles H. & Carter,John R., 2009. "Principles of Conflict Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521875578, December.
    8. David M. Bruner & John R. Boyce, 2013. "Voluntary Contributions to Property Rights," Working Papers 13-14, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    9. Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Reuben, Ernesto & van Winden, Frans, 2014. "On the escalation and de-escalation of conflict," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 40-57.
    10. Carter, John R. & Anderton, Charles H., 2001. "An experimental test of a predator-prey model of appropriation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 83-97, May.
    11. Francisco Campos-Ortiz & Louis Putterman & T.K. Ahn & Loukas Balafoutas & Mongoljin Batsaikhan & Matthias Sutter, 2012. "Security of property as a public good: Institutions, socio-political environment and experimental behavior in five countries," Working Papers 2012-26, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    12. Marco Faillo & Matteo Rizzolli & Stephan Tontrup, 2016. "Thou shalt not steal (from hard-working people)An experiment on respect for property claims," Econometica Working Papers wp58, Econometica.
    13. Charles Anderton & John Carter, 2004. "Vulnerable Trade: The Dark Side of an Edgeworth Box," Working Papers 0411, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    14. Smith, Adam C. & Houser, Daniel & Leeson, Peter T. & Ostad, Ramin, 2014. "The costs of conflict," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 61-71.
    15. Anderton, Charles H. & Carter, John R., 2008. "Vulnerable trade: The dark side of an Edgeworth box," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 422-432, November.
    16. Murnighan, J. Keith & Wang, Long, 2016. "The social world as an experimental game," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 80-94.
    17. Eckel, Catherine & Gintis, Herbert, 2010. "Blaming the messenger: Notes on the current state of experimental economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 109-119, January.
    18. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2012. "Political Economy of Conflict Foreword," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 122(2), pages 153-169.
    19. Kolmar, Martin, 2005. "The contribution of Herschel I. Grossman to political economy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 802-814, December.
    20. Kyung Hwan Baik & Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Abhijit Ramalingam, 2021. "Group size and matching protocol in contests," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(4), pages 1716-1736, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:66:y:2008:i:3-4:p:669-686. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.