IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jrp/jrpwrp/2011-046.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Whom to blame? An experiment of collective harming and punishing

Author

Listed:
  • Werner Güth

    (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group)

  • Hironori Otsubo

    (Soka University, Faculty of Economics)

Abstract

In a situation, where it is efficient for one of two parties to pollute but highly inefficient if both parties do so, the harmed third party can freely impose its damage claims on both parties what crucially determines which equilibrium to expect. Whereas "equality before the law" requires equal punishments, efficient equilibria are predicted when holding one party responsible and letting the other escape punishment. After discussing equilibrium selection for the game, we report on an experiment with two treatment variables: one that determines when the harmed party announces its potential damage claims and one varying a game- and justice-unrelated difference between the two culprits. According to our experimental data, "equality before the law" dominates but is weakened by asymmetry in wealth and the possibility to announce sanctions.

Suggested Citation

  • Werner Güth & Hironori Otsubo, 2011. "Whom to blame? An experiment of collective harming and punishing," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-046, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    • Handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-046
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://oweb.b67.uni-jena.de/Papers/jerp2011/wp_2011_046.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John C. Harsanyi & Reinhard Selten, 1988. "A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582384, December.
    2. Werner Güth & Hartmut Kliemt & Axel Ockenfels, 2001. "Retributive Responses," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 45(4), pages 453-469, August.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    4. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    5. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    6. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE 2.0 - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Working Paper Series in Economics 10, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    7. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2003-10, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tan, Fangfang & Xiao, Erte, 2018. "Third-party punishment: Retribution or deterrence?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 34-46.

    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. David Macro & Jeroen Weesie, 2016. "Inequalities between Others Do Matter: Evidence from Multiplayer Dictator Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-23, April.
    2. Billur Aksoy & Silvana Krasteva, 2020. "When does less information translate into more giving to public goods?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(4), pages 1148-1177, December.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Michael Powell & Tom Wilkening, 2014. "Handing Out Guns at a Knife Fight: Behavioral Limitations of Subgame-Perfect Implementation," CESifo Working Paper Series 4948, CESifo.
    4. Fehr, Ernst & Powell, Michael & Wilkening, Tom, 2021. "Behavioral Constraints on the Design of Subgame-Perfect Implementation Mechanisms," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 111(4), pages 1055-1091.
    5. Klaus M. Schmidt & Martin Spann & Robert Zeithammer, 2015. "Pay What You Want as a Marketing Strategy in Monopolistic and Competitive Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1217-1236, June.
    6. Florian Heine & Martin Sefton, 2018. "To Tender or Not to Tender? Deliberate and Exogenous Sunk Costs in a Public Good Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-28, June.
    7. Nagore Iriberri & Pedro Rey-Biel, 2011. "The role of role uncertainty in modified dictator games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(2), pages 160-180, May.
    8. Friehe, Tim & Utikal, Verena, 2018. "Intentions under cover – Hiding intentions is considered unfair," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 11-21.
    9. Astrid Gamba & Elena Manzoni & Luca Stanca, 2017. "Social comparison and risk taking behavior," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 82(2), pages 221-248, February.
    10. Alberti, Federica & Güth, Werner, 2013. "Studying deception without deceiving participants: An experiment of deception experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 196-204.
    11. Paetzel, Fabian & Sausgruber, Rupert & Traub, Stefan, 2014. "Social preferences and voting on reform: An experimental study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 36-55.
    12. Holger Herz & Dmitry Taubinsky, 2018. "What Makes a Price Fair? An Experimental Study of Transaction Experience and Endogenous Fairness Views," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 316-352.
    13. Fischbacher, Urs & Utikal, Verena, 2013. "On the acceptance of apologies," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 592-608.
    14. Tobias Regner, 2018. "What's behind image? towards a better understanding of image-driven behavior," Jena Economics Research Papers 2018-020, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    15. Christiane Bradler, 2009. "Social Preferences under Risk - An Experimental Analysis," Jena Economics Research Papers 2009-022, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    16. Fabio Galeotti & Maria Montero & Anders Poulsen, 2015. "Efficiency versus equality in real-time bargaining with communication," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 15-18, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    17. Gerald Eisenkopf & Ruslan Gurtoviy & Verena Utikal, 2011. "Size matters - when it comes to lies," IAAEG Discussion Papers until 2011 20110517, Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU).
    18. Fabio Galeotti & Maria Montero & Anders Poulsen, 2019. "Efficiency Versus Equality in Bargaining," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(6), pages 1941-1970.
    19. Nikiforakis, Nikos & Noussair, Charles N. & Wilkening, Tom, 2012. "Normative conflict and feuds: The limits of self-enforcement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 797-807.
    20. Martin Kesternich & Andreas Lange & Bodo Sturm, 2018. "On the performance of rule-based contribution schemes under endowment heterogeneity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(1), pages 180-204, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Law and economics; Equality vs. efficiency; Equilibrium selection; Laboratory experiments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)

    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:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-046. 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: Markus Pasche (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jenecon.de .

    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.