Who punishes? A note on responses to cooperation and defection across cultures

Talbot M. Andrews ()
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Talbot M. Andrews: University of Connecticut

Journal of the Economic Science Association, 2024, vol. 10, issue 2, No 26, 603-608

Abstract: Abstract While people are surprisingly cooperative in social dilemmas, cooperation is fragile to the emergence of defection. Punishment is a key mechanism through which people sustain cooperation, but when are people willing to pay the costs to punish? Using data from existing work on punishment in public goods games conducted in industrialized countries throughout the world (Herrmann et al. in Science, 319(5868):1362–1367, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1144237 ), I find first that those who contribute more are consistently punished less. Second, in many study locations, there are insignificant differences in the propensity of those who contribute and defect to punish. Finally, those who contribute and defect both carry out punishment against defectors. Some defectors do punish cooperators, but less often than they punish other defectors. The determinants of punishment are largely consistent across cities.

Keywords: Public goods; Cooperation; Punishment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D90 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s40881-023-00157-z

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