See No Evil: Information Chains and Reciprocity in Teams

Ro'i Zultan and Eva Maria Berger Steiger

No 1108, Working Papers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics

Abstract: Transparency in teams can facilitate cooperation. We study contribution decisions by agents when previous decisions can be observed. We find that an information chain, in which each agent directly observes only the decision of her immediate predecessor, is at least as effective as a fully-transparent protocol in inducing cooperation under increasing returns to scale. In a comparable social dilemma, the information chain leads to high cooperation both in early movers when compared to a non-transparent protocol and in late movers when compared to a fully-transparent protocol. we conclude that information chains facilitate cooperation by balancing positive and negative reciprocity.

Keywords: team production; public goods; incentives; externality; information; transparency; conditional cooperation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D21 J31 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cta, nep-exp, nep-hrm and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: See No Evil: Information Chains and Reciprocity in Teams (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bgu:wpaper:1108

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