IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mlb/wpaper/1119.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mixing the Carrots with the Sticks: Are Punishment and Reward Substitutes

Author

Listed:
  • Helen Mitchell
  • Nikos Nikiforakis

Abstract

This paper presents evidence that the demand for costly norm enforcement can be affected by the availability of the means for enforcing the norm. Participants in a laboratory experiment can reward or punish to enforce a distribution norm. Controlling for the extent of norm violation, we find that demand for costly punishment is lower when participants also have the opportunity to reward norm adherence. Similarly, demand for costly reward is lower when participants can punish norm violations, controlling for the extent of norm adherence. The reason is that participants use reward and punishment to signal their approval and disapproval. The availability of reward opportunities allows them to signal their disapproval by withholding reward. Similarly, the availability of punishment opportunities allows them to signal their approval by withholding punishment. This suggests that individuals consider reward and punishment to be substitutes. The resultant reduction in costly enforcement does not affect adherence to the norm, but has a significant impact on earnings in the experiment.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Mitchell & Nikos Nikiforakis, 2011. "Mixing the Carrots with the Sticks: Are Punishment and Reward Substitutes," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1119, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:mlb:wpaper:1119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/784255/1119.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    punishment; reward; social norms; norm enforcement; third party;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:mlb:wpaper:1119. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Dandapani Lokanathan (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demelau.html .

    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.