 It pays to be nice: The benefits of cooperating in marketsNina Serdarevic, Eirik Strømland and Sigve Tjøtta Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2021, vol. 90, issue C Abstract: We contribute to the experimental literature by examining the causal effect of partner choice opportunities on the earnings of different cooperative types. We first elicit cooperative types and then randomly assign subjects to a repeated prisoner's dilemma game, with either mutual partner choice or random matching. In each period, the individual who fails to attain a partner is excluded from the group. The results from three experiments show that mutual partner choice enables cooperators to outperform free riders; cooperators tend to earn more than free riders and are less frequently excluded. Our findings are robust with respect to varying group size and whether subjects are reminded about their entire partner and earnings history or only their recent history. Keywords: Cooperation; Partner choice; Preference evolution (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:90:y:2021:i:c:s2214804320301427 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2020.101595 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.