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Black Sheep and Walls of Silence

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Author Info
Muehlheusser, Gerd
Roider, Andreas

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Abstract

In this paper we analyse the frequently observed phenomenon that (i) some members of a team ('black sheep') exhibit behaviour disliked by other (honest) team members, who (ii) nevertheless refrain from reporting such misbehaviour to the authorities (they set up a 'wall of silence'). Much cited examples include hospitals and police departments. In this paper, these features arise in equilibrium. An important ingredient of our model are benefits that agents receive when cooperating with each other in a team. Our results suggest that teams in which the importance of these benefits varies across team members are especially prone to the above mentioned phenomenon.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5308.

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Date of creation: Oct 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5308

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Related research
Keywords: asymmetric information; misbehaviour; teams; wall of silence;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information

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