Identity, Cooperation, and Punishment

Kendra N. McLeish and Robert J. Oxoby ()

No 2572, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: Among economists, there is increased recognition of the role individuals’ identities play in decision-making. In this paper, we conduct laboratory experiments in which we explore the motivations for and the effects of group identity. We find that negative out-group opinion (acting as an inter-group identity threat) can motivate in-group/out-group effects in a simple bargaining context. Further, our results suggest that disparagement of group norms by members of the in-group (acting as an intra-group identity threat) increases the use of costly punishment within the in-group.

Keywords: identity; fairness; reciprocity; experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 D1 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-soc
Date: 2007-01
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
ftp://repec.iza.org/RePEc/Discussionpaper/dp2572.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2572

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Address: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Mark Fallak ().