IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cla/levarc/122247000000002199.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Altruism, Partner Choice, and Fixed-Cost Signalling

Author

Listed:
  • Andriy Zapechelnyuk
  • Ro'i Zultan

Abstract

We consider a multitype population model with unobservable types, in which players are engaged in the `mutual help' game: each player can increase her partner's fitness at a cost to oneself. All individuals prefer free riding to cooperation, but some of them, helpers, can establish reciprocal cooperation in a long-term relationship. Such heterogeneity can drive cooperation through a partner selection mechanism under which helpers choose to interact with one another and shun non-helpers. However, in contrast to the existing literature, we assume that each individual is matched with an anonymous partner, and therefore, stable cooperation cannot be achieved by partner selection per se. We suggest that helpers can signal their type to one another in order to establish long-term relationships, and we show that a reliable signal always exists. Moreover, due to the difference in future benefits of a long-term relationship for helpers and non-helpers, the signal need not be a handicap, in the sense that the cost of the signal need not be correlated with type.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was b
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Andriy Zapechelnyuk & Ro'i Zultan, 2008. "Altruism, Partner Choice, and Fixed-Cost Signalling," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000002199, David K. Levine.
    • Handle: RePEc:cla:levarc:122247000000002199
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.dklevine.com/archive/refs4122247000000002199.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James W. Friedman, 1971. "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(1), pages 1-12.
    2. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    3. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Nelson, Phillip, 1970. "Information and Consumer Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 311-329, March-Apr.
    5. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6685), pages 573-577, June.
    6. M.A. Nowak & K. Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity by Image Scoring/ The Dynamics of Indirect Reciprocity," Working Papers ir98040, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    7. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 2000. "Cheap Talk and Burned Money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-16, March.
    8. Robert J. Aumann & Lloyd S. Shapley, 2013. "Long Term Competition -- A Game-Theoretic Analysis," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(2), pages 627-640, November.
    9. Hirshlifer, David & Rassmusen, Eric, 1989. "Cooperation in a repeated prisoners' dilemma with ostracism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 87-106, August.
    10. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1979. "Equilibrium in supergames with the overtaking criterion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1-9, August.
    11. Rudolf Schuessler, 1989. "Exit Threats and Cooperation under Anonymity," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(4), pages 728-749, December.
    12. Eric Alden Smith & Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 2000. "Costly Signaling and Cooperation," Working Papers 00-12-071, Santa Fe Institute.
    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. Andriy Zapechelnyuk & Ro'i Zultan, 2008. "Job Market Signaling and Job Search," Discussion Paper Series dp488, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    2. Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2002. "Globalization and Cooperative Relations," CEPR Discussion Papers 3522, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 2008. "An Approximate Folk Theorem with Imperfect Private Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 14, pages 309-330, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. von Wangenheim, Georg & Müller, Stephan, 2014. "Evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas: signaling internalized norms," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100340, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Abreu, Dilip & Dutta, Prajit K & Smith, Lones, 1994. "The Folk Theorem for Repeated Games: A NEU Condition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 939-948, July.
    6. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2004. "Social norms and human cooperation," Macroeconomics 0409026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Maria Bigoni & Gabriele Camera & Marco Casari, 2019. "Cooperation among strangers with and without a monetary system," Working Papers 19-01, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    8. Thomas de Haan & Theo Offerman & Randolph Sloof, 2015. "Money Talks? An Experimental Investigation Of Cheap Talk And Burned Money," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1385-1426, November.
    9. Pedro Bó, 2007. "Social norms, cooperation and inequality," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 30(1), pages 89-105, January.
    10. Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2005. "Managerial incentives and collusive behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1501-1523, August.
    11. Angelo Antoci & Luca Zarri, 2015. "Punish and perish?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(2), pages 195-223, May.
    12. Richard McLean & Ichiro Obara & Andrew Postlewaite, 2001. "Informational Smallness and Private Monitoring in Repeated Games," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-024, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 20 Jul 2005.
    13. Marco Battaglini & Stephen Coate, 2008. "A Dynamic Theory of Public Spending, Taxation, and Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 201-236, March.
    14. Daniel Friedman & Nirvikar Singh, 2004. "Vengefulness Evolves in Small Groups," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Steffen Huck (ed.), Advances in Understanding Strategic Behaviour, chapter 3, pages 28-54, Palgrave Macmillan.
    15. Friedman, Daniel & Singh, Nirvikar, 2004. "Vengefulness Evolves in Small Groups," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt0xp29105, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    16. Qu, Xinglong & Zhou, Changli & Cao, Zhigang & Yang, Xiaoguang, 2016. "Conditional dissociation as a punishment mechanism in the evolution of cooperation," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 449(C), pages 215-223.
    17. Kalai, E & Neme, A, 1992. "The Strength of a Little Perfection," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 20(4), pages 335-355.
    18. Fehr, Ernst & Henrich, Joseph, 2003. "Is Strong Reciprocity a Maladaptation? On the Evolutionary Foundations of Human Altruism," IZA Discussion Papers 712, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Can, Burak, 2014. "Weighted distances between preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 109-115.
    20. Ernesto Reuben & Sigrid Suetens, 2012. "Revisiting strategic versus non-strategic cooperation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 24-43, March.

    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:cla:levarc:122247000000002199. 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: David K. Levine (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.dklevine.com/ .

    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.