Game theory and the kula

Louis Corriveau

Rationality and Society, 2012, vol. 24, issue 1, 106-128

Abstract: The paper expounds a non-cooperative game that can be interpreted as a model of the system of kula that was described by Bronislaw Malinowski in his Argonauts of the Western Pacific . The game of kula is an infinite-horizon game with an arbitrary, but fixed, number n of players. It generates pure norms of direct reciprocity, pure norms of indirect reciprocity, and mixed norms whereby a player who deviates is punished both by the individual who has been harmed and by a third party.

Keywords: kula; social norms; theory of games (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463111434700 (text/html)

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:sae:ratsoc:v:24:y:2012:i:1:p:106-128

DOI: 10.1177/1043463111434700

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Rationality and Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().