Deterring Exploitation: Social Norms and Punishment Technology

Michalis Drouvelis, Nobuyuki Hanaki and Yuta Shimodaira

ISER Discussion Paper from Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka

Abstract: When are actors deterred from exploiting those over whom they hold unilateral power? We study this question in a laboratory experiment using a 2×2 design that extends the power-to-take game, varying whether the proposer can give as well as take, and whether the responder can destroy the proposer’s endowment at no cost (costless retaliation). Either variation alone leaves proposer behaviour unchanged, even though costless retaliation substantially increases punishment. Only when giving is feasible and retaliation is costless do proposers take significantly less, with average take rates falling from 60% to below 40%. Our findings show how institutional structures—through available action sets and punishment technologies—jointly determine whether exploitation is deterred.

Date: 2024-11, Revised 2026-06
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/static/resources/docs/dp/DP1262RR.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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1262rr

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ISER Discussion Paper from Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Librarian ().