IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/iecrev/v57y2016i4p1261-1278.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Helping Behavior In Large Societies

Author

Listed:
  • Francesc Dilmé

Abstract

This article investigates how helping behavior can be sustained in large societies in the presence of agents who never help. I consider a game with many players who are anonymously and randomly matched every period in pairs. Within each match, one player may provide socially optimal but individually costly help to the other player. I introduce and characterize the class of “linear equilibria” in which, unlike equilibria used in the previous literature, there is help even in the presence of behavioral players. Such equilibria are close to a tit‐for‐tat strategy and feature smooth help dynamics when the society is large.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesc Dilmé, 2016. "Helping Behavior In Large Societies," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1261-1278, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:57:y:2016:i:4:p:1261-1278
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12197
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12197
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/iere.12197?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ely, Jeffrey C. & Valimaki, Juuso, 2002. "A Robust Folk Theorem for the Prisoner's Dilemma," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 84-105, January.
    2. Joyee Deb, 2008. "Cooperation and Community Responsibility: A Folk Theorem for Repeated Matching Games with Names," Working Papers 08-24, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    3. Piccione, Michele, 2002. "The Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma with Imperfect Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 70-83, January.
    4. Glenn Ellison, 1994. "Cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma with Anonymous Random Matching," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 567-588.
    5. Takahashi, Satoru, 2010. "Community enforcement when players observe partners' past play," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 42-62, January.
    6. Michihiro Kandori, 1992. "Social Norms and Community Enforcement," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 63-80.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joyee Deb & Takuo Sugaya & Alexander Wolitzky, 2020. "The Folk Theorem in Repeated Games With Anonymous Random Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 917-964, May.
    2. Deb, Joyee & Gonzalez-Diaz, Julio, 2019. "Enforcing social norms: Trust-building and community enforcement," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), November.
    3. Deb, Joyee & González-Díaz, Julio & Renault, Jérôme, 2016. "Uniform folk theorems in repeated anonymous random matching games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 1-23.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Alexander Wolitzky, 2015. "Sustaining Cooperation: Community Enforcement vs. Specialized Enforcement," NBER Working Papers 21457, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Nava, Francesco & Piccione, Michele, 2011. "Efficiency in repeated two-action games with local monitoring," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58062, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Filip Vesely & Chun-Lei Yang, 2013. "On Optimal Social Convention in Voluntary Continuation Prisoner's Dilemma Games," CESifo Working Paper Series 4553, CESifo.
    7. Daniel Monte & Roberto Pinheiro, 2017. "Costly Information Intermediation as a Natural Monopoly," Working Papers (Old Series) 1721, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    8. Francesc Dilmé, 2012. "Cooperation in Large Societies, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 14-021, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Jun 2014.
    9. Mihm, Maximilian & Toth, Russell, 2020. "Cooperative networks with robust private monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    10. Takahashi, Satoru, 2010. "Community enforcement when players observe partners' past play," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 42-62, January.
    11. , & ,, 2014. "Efficiency in repeated games with local interaction and uncertain local monitoring," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(1), January.
    12. Matsushima Hitoshi, 2020. "Behavioral Theory of Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma: Generous Tit-For-Tat Strategy," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-11, January.
    13. Mailath, George J. & Morris, Stephen, 2002. "Repeated Games with Almost-Public Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 189-228, January.
    14. Olivier Compte & Andrew Postlewaite, 2007. "Effecting Cooperation," PIER Working Paper Archive 09-019, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 29 May 2009.
    15. Yutaka Kayaba & Hitoshi Matsushima & Tomohisa Toyama, 2017. "Accuracy and Retaliation in Repeated Games with Imperfect Private Monitoring: Experiments and Theory (Revised version of F-381)," CARF F-Series CARF-F-414, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    16. Takako Fujiwara‐Greve & Henrich R. Greve & Stefan Jonsson, 2016. "Asymmetry Of Customer Loss And Recovery Under Endogenous Partnerships: Theory And Evidence," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(1), pages 3-30, February.
    17. Bhaskar, V. & Obara, Ichiro, 2002. "Belief-Based Equilibria in the Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma with Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 40-69, January.
    18. Balmaceda, Felipe & Escobar, Juan F., 2017. "Trust in cohesive communities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 289-318.
    19. Joyee Deb, 2008. "Cooperation and Community Responsibility: A Folk Theorem for Repeated Matching Games with Names," Working Papers 08-24, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    20. Feinberg, Yossi & Kets, Willemien, 2014. "Ranking friends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 1-9.

    More about this item

    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:wly:iecrev:v:57:y:2016:i:4:p:1261-1278. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.