Why Punish: Social Reciprocity and the Enforcement of Prosocial Norms

Peter Matthews and Jeffrey Carpenter

Middlebury College Working Paper Series from Middlebury College, Department of Economics

Abstract: Recently economists have become interested in why people who face social dilemmas in the experimental lab use the seemingly incredible threat of punishment to deter free riding. Three theories have evolved to explain punishment. We survey each theory and se behavioral data from surveys and experiments to show that the theory called social reciprocity in which people punish norm violators indiscriminately explains punishment best. We also show that social reciprocity can evolve in a population of free riders and contributors if the initial conditions are favorable.

Keywords: social dilemma; public good; punishment; reciprocity; norm; evolutionary game theory; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D64 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2002-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Why Punish? Social reciprocity and the enforcement of prosocial norms (2004)
Working Paper: Why Punish: Social Reciprocity and the Enforcement of Prosocial Norms (2003)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0213

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