An Exploratory Foray into the Inclination to Cooperate in Spite of Cooperation-Induced Stress

Oded Stark and Grzegorz Kosiorowski
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Grzegorz Kosiorowski: Krakow University of Economics

No 18608, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: We establish a new approach to the modeling of cooperation, and we formulate a new solution concept for cooperative games. We do this by constructing a game of cooperation between individuals who exhibit distaste for relative deprivation, RD, in the sense that they experience stress when their income is lower than that of their comparators. In such a game, the sharing out of the jointly earned income between these individuals when they cooperate, as prescribed by standard solutions of cooperative games, might not be acceptable to the individuals. The stress from RD may have the upper hand. Measuring stress by RD, we thus model a setting in which two individuals who are concerned with being relatively deprived need to decide whether or not to cooperate. We term this setting an RD cooperative game, and we design a rule, the RD solution, for the distribution of the income yielded in this game. The RD solution prescribes cooperation in spite of cooperation-induced stress and preserves the spirit of standardness (an equal sharing of the gain that accrues from cooperation) for two-player games (a property shared by the main solution concepts for cooperative games).

Keywords: inclination to cooperate; cooperative games; social preferences; cooperation-induced stress; relative deprivation (RD); RD cooperative games; RD solution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D30 D63 D71 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-04
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