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Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics Ernst Fehr ()
Simon Gaechter ()
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This paper provides evidence that free riders are heavily punished even if punishment is costly and does not provide any material benefits for the punisher. The more free riders negatively deviate from the group standard the more they are punished. As a consequence, the existence of an opportunity for costly punishment causes a large increase in cooperation levels because potential free riders face a credible threat. We show, in particular, that in the presence of a costly punishment opportunity almost complete cooperation can be achieved and maintained although, under the standard assumptions of rationality and selfishness, there should be no cooperation at all. We also show that free riding causes strong negative emotions among cooperators. The intensity of these emotions is the stronger the more the free riders deviate from the group standard. Our results provide, therefore, support for the hypothesis that emotions are guarantors of credible threats.
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Paper provided by CESifo GmbH in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number
CESifo Working Paper No. 183.
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Date of creation: 1999Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_183Contact details of provider: Postal: Poschingerstrasse 5, 81679 Munich Phone: +49 (89) 9224-0 Fax: +49 (89) 985369 Web page: http://www.cesifo.de
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Keywords: Voluntary cooperation public good punishment emotions social norms experiments Other versions of this item:
Find related papers by JEL classification: C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile , click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: Ernst Fehr & Simon Gachter & Georg Kirchsteiger, 2001.
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Other versions: Fehr, Ernst & Kirchsteiger, George & Riedl, Arno, 1993.
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