Endogenous Reputation Formation: Cooperation and Identity under the Shadow of the Future

Kenju Kamei

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: People are interacting more with strangers thanks to recent technological advancement in online platforms. Online interactions can be characterized by infinitely-repeated games. Recent studies have shown that institutions that make people’s decisions open to others may enhance cooperation in these situations. But it is still unknown whether people can successfully cooperate with each other by choosing to show their identities and building good reputation when there is an option to hide them. We deal with this question using an experimental laboratory. Our experiment shows that a non-negligible fraction of people conceal their identities and people fail to cooperate with each other if hiding identities is free. However, almost all show their identities and successfully achieve cooperation with their partners if a small explicit cost is charged for act of hiding.

Keywords: experiment; cooperation; reputation; prisoner dilemma game; internet; infinitely-repeated games (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 C92 D70 M21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-01-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62284/8/MPRA_paper_62284.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:61657

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