The puzzle of human cooperation among strangers is still one of the fundamental open questions in contemporary social sciences. We experimentally investigate a finitely repeated public goods game where in each round access to sanctioning power is exclusively awarded to the group’s top contributor. We show that this novel ‘Top Contributors as Punishers’ mechanism is extremely effective in raising cooperation and welfare, compared to other peer-to-peer sanctioning institutions. Despite the potential (first and second-order) free riding problem, the lure of the top contributor role induces many subjects to significantly contribute and incur relevant costs to sanction others. Our findings yield efficiency implications for the design of mechanisms intended to foster cooperation in social dilemma environments, from teamwork to voluntarily maintained web-based projects.
Top Contributors as Punishers
ZARRI, Luca
2013-01-01
Abstract
The puzzle of human cooperation among strangers is still one of the fundamental open questions in contemporary social sciences. We experimentally investigate a finitely repeated public goods game where in each round access to sanctioning power is exclusively awarded to the group’s top contributor. We show that this novel ‘Top Contributors as Punishers’ mechanism is extremely effective in raising cooperation and welfare, compared to other peer-to-peer sanctioning institutions. Despite the potential (first and second-order) free riding problem, the lure of the top contributor role induces many subjects to significantly contribute and incur relevant costs to sanction others. Our findings yield efficiency implications for the design of mechanisms intended to foster cooperation in social dilemma environments, from teamwork to voluntarily maintained web-based projects.
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