Cooperation and punishment mechanisms in uncertain and dynamic social networks

Edoardo Gallo, Yohanes Riyanto, Nilanjan Roy and Tat-How Teh

Games and Economic Behavior, 2022, vol. 134, issue C, 75-103

Abstract: This paper examines experimentally how reputational uncertainty and the rate of change of the social environment determine cooperation. Reputational uncertainty significantly decreases cooperation, while a fast-changing social environment only causes a second-order qualitative increase in cooperation. At the individual level, reputational uncertainty induces more leniency and forgiveness in imposing network punishment through the link proposal and removal processes, inhibiting the formation of cooperative clusters. However, this effect is significant only in the fast-changing environment and not in the slow-changing environment. A substitution pattern between network punishment and action punishment (retaliatory defection) explains this discrepancy across the two social environments.

Keywords: Cooperation; Experiments; Prisoner's dilemma; Uncertainty; Repeated games; Networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C73 C92 D81 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:134:y:2022:i:c:p:75-103

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2022.03.015

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