Multigame Contact: A Double-Edged Sword for Cooperation

Vincent Laferrière, Joao Montez, Catherine Roux and Christian Thöni

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2024, vol. 16, issue 2, 39-61

Abstract: We study experimentally the effect of multigame contact on cooperation, with each subject playing a pair of indefinitely repeated prisoner's dilemmas. Multigame contact is present if a subject plays both games with a single partner, and it is absent if each of the two games is played with a different partner. In contrast to the theoretical prediction, multigame contact does not increase overall cooperation rates. Nonetheless, multigame contact systematically affects behavior and outcomes, acting like a double-edged sword, in the sense that subjects link decisions across games and, consequently, mutual cooperation and mutual defection in both games become more likely.

JEL-codes: C72 C73 C92 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1257/mic.20210377

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