Relatives Versus Neighbors - An Experiment Studying Spontaneous Social Exchange -

Werner Güth (), Maria Vittoria Levati () and Georg von Wangenheim

Papers on Strategic Interaction from Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group

Abstract: Social institutions regulating group conduct have been regarded as necessary for human cooperation to transcend family bonds. However, many studies in economics and biology indicate that reciprocity based on repeated interaction su_ces to establish cooperation with non-kin. We shed light on the issue by a voluntary social exchange experiment where related (via mutual shareholding) players coexist with unrelated ones. Systematically varying the degree of shared interests and the length of the time horizon, we provide evidence that repeated interactions play a crucial role in human cooperation, although humans remain attentive to relatedness.

Keywords: Reciprocity; Relatedness; Social institutions; Voluntary social exchange errors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
Date: 2004-09
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