The Limits of Self-Governance in the Presence of Spite: Experimental Evidence from Urban and Rural Russia

Simon Gächter () and Benedikt Herrmann ()
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Benedikt Herrmann: University of Nottingham

No 2236, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: We report evidence from public goods experiments with and without punishment which we conducted in Russia with 566 urban and rural participants of young and mature age cohorts. Russia is interesting for studying voluntary cooperation because of its long history of collectivism, and a huge urban-rural gap. In contrast to previous experiments we find no cooperation-enhancing effect of punishment. An important reason is that there is substantial spiteful punishment of high contributors in all four subject pools. Thus, spite undermines the scope for self-governance in the sense of high levels of voluntary cooperation that are sustained by sanctioning free riders only.

Keywords: social norms; free riding; punishment; spite; experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 C91 D23 C72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-cwa, nep-exp, nep-pbe, nep-soc and nep-tra
Date: 2006-07
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Working Paper: The Limits of Self-Governance in the Presence of Spite: Experimental Evidence from Urban and Rural Russia (2006)
Working Paper: The limits of self-governance in the presence of spite: Experimental evidence from urban and rural Russia (2006)
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