The Perils of Peer Punishment: Evidence from a Common Pool Resource Experiment

Gioia de Melo and Matías Piaggio

No 2015-12, Working Papers from Banco de México

Abstract: We provide experimental evidence on the effects of social disapproval by peers among communities of Uruguayan small-scale fishers exploiting a common pool resource (CPR). We combined this treatment with an in-group (groups from a single community) / mixed group (groups composed of fishers from different communities) treatment. We find that mixed groups, unlike in-groups, reduce their exploitation of the resource in response to the threat of punishment. Both in in-groups and mixed groups there is substantial antisocial punishment, which leads to increased extraction of the CPR by those who are unfairly punished. These findings indicate that effective peer punishment requires coordination to prevent antisocial targeting and to clarify the social signal conveyed by punishment.

Keywords: social disapproval; social preferences; common pool resource (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D01 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-env, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-net and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.banxico.org.mx/publications-and-press/ ... -D35C528485A6%7D.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2015-12

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Banco de México Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Subgerencia de desarrollo de sistemas ().