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Secret Santa: Anonymity, Signalling, and Conditional Cooperation

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David Hugh-Jones ()
David Reinstein ()

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Abstract

Costly signalling of commitment to a group has been proposed as an explanation for participation in religion and ritual. But if the signal’s cost is too small, freeriders will send the signal and behave selfishly later. Effective signalling may then be prohibitively costly. If the average level of signalling in a group is observable, but individual effort is not, then freeriders can behave selfishly without being detected, and group members will learn about the average level of commitment among the group. We develop a formal model, and give examples of institutions that enable anonymous signalling, including ritual, religion, music and dance, voting, charitable donations, and military institutions. We explore the value of anonymity in the laboratory with a repeated two-stage public goods game with exclusion. When first-stage contributions are anonymous, subjects are better at predicting second-stage behavior, and maintain a substantially higher level of cooperation.

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Paper provided by University of Essex, Department of Economics in its series Economics Discussion Papers with number 670.

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Date of creation: 08 Jul 2009
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Handle: RePEc:esx:essedp:670

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  2. John Londregan & Andrea Vindigni, 2006. "Voting as a Credible Threat," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 18, Collegio Carlo Alberto. [Downloadable!]
  3. John A. List & David Lucking-Reiley, 2002. "The Effects of Seed Money and Refunds on Charitable Giving: Experimental Evidence from a University Capital Campaign," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 215-233, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Richard Sosis & Bradley Ruffle, 2003. "Religious Ritual and Cooperation: Testing for a Relationship on Israeli Religious and Secular Kibbutzim," Artefactual Field Experiments 0073, The Field Experiments Website. [Downloadable!]
  5. Kandori, Michihiro, 1992. "Social Norms and Community Enforcement," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 59(1), pages 63-80, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gachter, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Wrong Kind of Transparency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 862-877, June. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Dean Karlan & John A. List, 2007. "Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1774-1793, December. [Downloadable!]
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  10. List, John A. & Rondeau, Daniel, 2003. "The impact of challenge gifts on charitable giving: an experimental investigation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 153-159, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Londregan, John & Vindigni, Andrea, 2006. "Voting as a Credible Threat," Papers 10-04-2006, Princeton University, Research Program in Political Economy. [Downloadable!]
  12. Ellison, Glenn, 1994. "Cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma with Anonymous Random Matching," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 61(3), pages 567-88, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Schram, Arthur, 2000. " Sorting Out the Seeking: The Economics of Individual Motivations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 103(3-4), pages 231-58, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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