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Rarer Actions: Giving and Taking in Third-Party Punishment Games

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Halliday

    (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

Abstract

In attempting to understand cooperation, economists have used the methods of experimental economics to focus on spheres of human behavior in which humans display altruism, reciprocity, or other social preferences through giving and through punishment. Recent work has begun to examine whether allowing allocations in the negative domain, that is, allowing subjects to take (or steal) other subjects' endowments, might affect participants' behavior. If participants' behavior is a affected, then our understanding of experimental results generally, and social preferences specifically, should be affected too (List 2007, Bardsley 2008). In this paper we propose an experimental variation on the Dictator Game with third-party punishment (Fehr & Fischbacher 2004b). We examine, first, a basic Dictator Game with third-party punishment, after which we introduce a treatment allowing the dictator to take from the receiver, in the knowledge that the third party could punish them. The results conict. Many dictators choose the most self-interested option, while, when taking is introduced as an option for the dictator, third parties punish the most self-interested option more than in the baseline.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Halliday, 2011. "Rarer Actions: Giving and Taking in Third-Party Punishment Games," SALDRU Working Papers 62, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    • Handle: RePEc:ldr:wpaper:62
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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