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Promoting cooperation in nonlinear social dilemmas through peer punishment

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  • Timothy Cason
  • Lata Gangadharan

Abstract

Many social dilemmas exhibit nonlinearities and equilibrium outcomes in the interior of the choice space. This paper reports a laboratory experiment studying whether peer punishment promotes socially efficient behavior in such environments, which have been ignored in most experimental studies of peer punishment. It compares the effectiveness of peer punishment in a linear public good game to the effectiveness of this decentralized enforcement mechanism in two nonlinear social dilemma games: a piecewise linear public good game and a common pool resource game. While peer punishment improves cooperation in these new environments, the impact of punishment is weaker and takes longer to be effective. This appears to be due to the greater complexity of the nonlinear settings, which makes socially optimal choices more difficult to identify. Copyright Economic Science Association 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy Cason & Lata Gangadharan, 2015. "Promoting cooperation in nonlinear social dilemmas through peer punishment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(1), pages 66-88, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:expeco:v:18:y:2015:i:1:p:66-88
    DOI: 10.1007/s10683-014-9393-0
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Experiment; Voluntary contributions mechanism; Common pool resources; Public goods; Nonlinear returns; C90; D70; H41;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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