The Evolution of Morals under Indirect Reciprocity

Alexia Gaudeul, Claudia Keser and Stephan Müller

CIRANO Working Papers from CIRANO

Abstract: We theoretically and experimentally study the evolution of strategies reflecting different moral judgments under indirect reciprocity. We fully characterize the evolutionary stable equilibria. In all cooperative equilibria multiple strategies coexist. This offers an explanation for the heterogeneity in moral judgments among humans. The prescribed behavior of the equilibrium strategies can rationalize the design of empirical examples of reputation systems, which are set up to resolve problems of moral hazard. In our laboratory experiment, we find that more than 75% of participants play strategies that belong to the predicted equilibrium set.

Keywords: Indirect Reciprocity; Cooperation; Evolution; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 C91 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-12-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The evolution of morals under indirect reciprocity (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cir:cirwor:2019s-29

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