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The meritocracy as a mechanism to overcome social dilemmas

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Author Info
gunnthorsdottir, anna
vragov, roumen
mccabe, kevin
seifert, stefan

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Abstract

A new mechanism that substantially mitigates social dilemmas is examined theoretically and experimentally. It resembles the voluntary contribution mechanism (VCM) except that in each decision round subjects are ranked and then grouped according to their public contribution. The game has multiple mostly asymmetric, Pareto-ranked pure-strategy equilibria which are rather counterintuitive, yet experimental subjects tacitly coordinate the payoff-dominant equilibrium reliably and quite precisely. In the VCM grouping is random which, with its arbitrary relation to contribution corresponds to any grouping unrelated to output, for example grouping based on race or gender. The new mechanism resembles a meritocracy since based on how much they contribute; participants are assigned to strata that vary in payoff. The findings shed light on the nature of merit-based social and organizational grouping and provide guidelines for future research and application.

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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 2454.

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Date of creation: 10 Feb 2007
Date of revision: 09 Apr 2007
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:2454

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Related research
Keywords: social dilemmas Nash equilibrium non-cooperative games coordination mechanism design experiment

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making

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References listed on IDEAS
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