Norm-signalling punishment

Daniele Nosenzo, Erte Xiao and Nina Xue ()
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Nina Xue: Department of Economics, Monash University

No 2022-26, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: The literature on punishment and prosocial behavior has presented conflicting findings. In some settings, punishment crowds out prosocial behavior and backfires; in others, however, it promotes prosociality. We examine whether the punisher’s motives can help reconcile these results through a novel experiment in which the agent’s outcomes are identical in two environments, but in one punishment is self-serving (i.e., potentially benefits the punisher) while in the other it is other-regarding (i.e., potentially benefits a third party). We find that self-regarding punishment reduces the social stigma of selfish behavior, while other-regarding punishment does not. As a result, self-serving punishment is less effective at encouraging compliance and is more likely to backfire compared to other-regarding punishment. Our findings have implications for the design of punishment mechanisms and highlight the importance of the punisher’s motives in the norm-signalling function of punishment.

Keywords: punishment; norms; stigma; crowd out; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
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Working Paper: Norm-Signalling Punishment (2022)
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