Who to punish? Individual decisions and majority rule in mitigating the free rider problem

Ertan, Arhan S.; Page, Talbot; Putterman, Louis

doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2008.09.007

“…reward rules), even though punishment rules often turn out to be the most effective ones in terms of cooperation enhancement if elected (e.g. Bothelo et al, 2009;Ertan et al, 2009;Guillen et al, 2006;Sutter et al, 2010). 23 Second, our results show that the reason for the absence of welfare improvements is that people broke the proposed rules frequently, even if they themselves had voted for its implementation.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…by external agents (see e.g. Ostrom et al, 1992;Decker et al, 2003;Tyran and Feld, 2006;Kroll et al, 2007;Ertan et al, 2009;Dal Bo et al, 2010;Sutter et al, 2010;Walker et al, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co-managing common-pool resources: Do formal rules have to be adapted to traditional ecological norms?

Vollan

¹

,

Prediger

²

,

Frölich

³

2013

Ecological Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Co-managing common pool resources: Do formal rules have to be adapted to traditional ecological norms?Abstract: We examine the effectiveness of three democratically chosen rules that alleviate the coordination and cooperation problems inherent in collectively managed common-pool resources. In particular we investigate how rule effectiveness and rule compliance depends on the prevailing local norms and ecological values held by resource users. For this purpose, we employ a framed field experiment that is based on a rangeland model for semi-arid regions and carried out with communal farmers in Namibia and South Africa. Participants could vote for three "best practice" management rules found in many places around the world that are discussed for implementation in the study area: (temporary) private property rights, rotational grazing or limitation of livestock numbers. All rules were designed in a way that facilitated cooperation or coordination of actions. The focus of this study lies on the interactions between these rules and prevalent ecological norms exhibited in the rounds prior to rule implementation. In contrast to previous lab experimental studies, we find that democratic voting of rules is not sufficient for high rule compliance and an overall enhancement in cooperation. Rules turned out to be inefficient if they were in conflict with the prevalent ecological norm.

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“…[19,59,84]. In [27], it is shown that if players can vote, before the public good interaction, whether the subsequent peer punishment should be applied to defectors only, or could be used without restrictions, then anti-social punishment becomes very rare. This seems to indicate that when players set up a punishment pool, they would direct it only against free-riders.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Control and the Social Contract: The Emergence of Sanctioning Systems for Collective Action

Sigmund

¹

,

Hauert

²

,

Traulsen

³

et al. 2010

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Punishment of free-riders is generally viewed as an important factor in promoting cooperation. But since it is often costly to sanction exploiters, the emergence of such a behavior and its stability raise interesting problems. Players who do not contribute to the sanctions, but profit from the increased level of cooperation caused by them, act as "second-order exploiters" and threaten the joint enterprise. In this paper, we review the role of voluntary participation in establishing and upholding cooperation with or without punishment. In particular, we deal with two distinct forms of punishment, namely peer punishment and pool punishment, and compare their stability and their efficiency. The emergence and upkeep of collaborative undertakings can strongly depend on whether participation is voluntary or mandatory. The possibility to opt out of a joint enterprise often helps in curbing exploiters and boosting pro-social behavior.Keywords Evolutionary game theory · Public goods games · Cooperation · Costly punishment · Social dilemma · Voluntary interactions For online experimentation, we refer to http://www.hanneloredesilva.at/sanctions and the VirtualLabs at

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“…Third, the results of Ertan, Page, and Putterman (2009) show that subjects prefer institutional environments which do not allow for punishment of high contributors. While these results stem from experiments with perfect information, we interpret this as evidence that the more punishment of cooperative citizens is perceived a problem, the more citizens are willing to tolerate restrictions in their punishment authority.…”

Section: Behavioral Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information-sensitive Leviathans

Nicklisch

¹

,

Grechenig

²

,

Thöni

³

2016

Journal of Public Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract We study information conditions under which individuals are willing to delegate their sanctioning power to a central authority. We design a public goods game in which players can move between institutional environments, and we vary the observability of others' contributions. We find that the relative popularity of centralized sanctioning crucially depends on the interaction between the observability of the cooperation of others and the absence of punishment targeted at cooperative individuals. While central institutions do not outperform decentralized sanctions under perfect information, large parts of the population are attracted by central institutions that rarely punish cooperative individuals in environments with limited observability. Terms of use: Documents in

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Who to punish? Individual decisions and majority rule in mitigating the free rider problem

Cited by 216 publications

References 24 publications

Co-managing common-pool resources: Do formal rules have to be adapted to traditional ecological norms?

Co-managing common-pool resources: Do formal rules have to be adapted to traditional ecological norms?

Social Control and the Social Contract: The Emergence of Sanctioning Systems for Collective Action

Information-sensitive Leviathans

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