Teams Contribute More and Punish Less

Marcel Thum, Heike Auerswald (), Carsten Schmidt and Gaute Torsvik

VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: Many decisions in politics and business are made by teams rather than by single individuals. In contrast, economic models typically assume an individual rational decision maker. A rapidly growing body of (experimental) literature investigates team decisions in different settings. We study team decisions in a public goods contribution game with a costly punishment option and compare it to the behavior of individuals in a laboratory experiment. We also consider different team decision-making rules (unanimity, majority). We find that teams contribute significantly more and punish less than individuals, regardless of the team decision rule. Overall, teams yield higher payoffs than individuals.

JEL-codes: C72 C92 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-gth
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Teams contribute more and punish less (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100537

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