An individualistic approach to institution formation in public good games

Abhijit Ramalingam, Sara Godoy, Antonio Morales () and James Walker
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Sara Godoy: University of Essex

No 14-10R, Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) from School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: In a repeated public goods setting, we explore whether individuals, acting unilaterally, will provide an effective sanctioning institution. Subjects first choose independently whether they will participate in a sanctioning stage that follows a contribution stage. Only those who gave themselves the "right" to sanction can do so. We find that the effectiveness of the institution may not require provision of the institution at the level of the group. Individuals acting unilaterally are able to provide sanctioning institutions that effectively raise cooperation. The effectiveness of the institution, however, depends on whether the "right" to sanction entails a monetary cost or not.

Keywords: public goods; experiment; punishment; institution formation; unilateral provision; cooperation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 C92 D02 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-gth
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Related works:
Journal Article: An individualistic approach to institution formation in public good games (2016)
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