The Enemy of my Enemy

Alessandro Stringhi, Sara Gil-Gallen and Andrea Albertazzi
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Alessandro Stringhi: Università degli Studi di Siena
Sara Gil-Gallen: Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council
Andrea Albertazzi: IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca

No 2025.03, Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

Abstract: This paper studies how competition between groups affects cooperation. In the control condition, pairs of subjects play an indefinitely repeated Prisoner s Dilemma game without external competition. In the treatment, two pairs compete against each other. No monetary rewards are tied to winning, isolating the bare impact of competition. In the treatment, cooperation increases by 16 percentage points. Strategies estimation shows a shift from selfish strategies (Always Defect) to cooperative ones (Grim Trigger). A theoretical model provides a rationale for the experimental results.

Keywords: Competition; Cooperation; Prisoner s Dilemma; Repeated game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 C92 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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