Mutual Monitoring in Teams: Theory and Experimental Evidence on the Importance of Reciprocity

Jeffrey Carpenter, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis

Middlebury College Working Paper Series from Middlebury College, Department of Economics

Abstract: Monitoring by peers is often an effective means of attenuating incentive problems. Most explanations of the efficacy of mutual monitoring rely either on small group size or on a version of the Folk theorem with repeated interactions which requires reasonably accurate public information concerning the behavior of each player. We provide a model of team production in which the effectiveness of mutual monitoring depends not on these factors, but rather on strong reciprocity: the willingness of some team members to engage in the costly punishment of shirkers. This alternative does not require small group size or public signals. An experimental public goods game provides evidence for the behavioral relevance of strong reciprocity in teams.

Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2006-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-pke and nep-soc
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.middlebury.edu/services/econ/repec/mdl/ancoec/0608.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Mutual Monitoring in Teams: Theory and Experimental Evidence on the Importance of Reciprocity (2006)
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:mdl:mdlpap:0608

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Middlebury College Working Paper Series from Middlebury College, Department of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vijaya Wunnava ().