Norm Enforcement: Anger, Indignation or Reciprocity?
Abstract
The enforcement of social norms often requires that unaffected third parties sanction offenders. Given the renewed interest of economists in norms, the literature on third party punishment is surprisingly thin, however. In this paper, we report on the results of an experiment designed to evaluate two distinct explanations for this phenomenon, indignation and group reciprocity. We find evidence in favor of both, with the caveat that the incidence of indignation-driven sanctions is perhaps smaller than earlier studies have hinted. Furthermore, our results suggest that second parties use sanctions to promote conformism while third parties intervene primarily to promote efficiency.Download Info
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Paper provided by Middlebury College, Department of Economics in its series Middlebury College Working Paper Series with number 0503.Length: 22 pages
Date of creation: Mar 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0503
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Related research
Keywords: experiment; voluntary contribution mechanism; norm; third party punishment; reciprocity; indignation;Other versions of this item:
- Jeffrey P. Carpenter & Peter Hans Matthews, 2012. "Norm Enforcement: Anger, Indignation, Or Reciprocity?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 555-572, 05.
- Carpenter, Jeffrey P. & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2005. "Norm Enforcement: Anger, Indignation or Reciprocity?," IZA Discussion Papers 1583, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- C79 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Other
- C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
- C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
- D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy
- H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2005-03-13 (All new papers)
- NEP-EVO-2005-03-13 (Evolutionary Economics)
- NEP-EXP-2005-03-13 (Experimental Economics)
- NEP-REG-2005-03-13 (Regulation)
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References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Astrid Hopfensitz & Ernesto Reuben, 2005. "The Importance of Emotions for the Effectiveness of Social Punishment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-075/1, Tinbergen Institute, revised 28 Mar 2006.
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