Why feed the Leviathan?

Abstract

This is a study about the possibility of self-governance. We designed two versions of a step-level public good game, with or without a centralized sanctioning mechanism (CSM). In a baseline treatment participants play 14 rounds of the non-CSM game. In an automatic removal (AR) treatment participants play 7 rounds with CSM plus 7 rounds without CSM. In voted removal (VR) participants play 7 rounds with CSM followed by a voting stage to decide whether to keep CSM. All VR groups removed CSM. Contributions in AR and VR after CSM removal are dramatically higher than in the baseline. Most groups with a CSM history managed to cooperate until the last round. We do not find more cooperation in VR than in AR. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2007Public good, Step-level, Sanctioning institution, Cooperation, Education, Trust,

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

“…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.…”

The evolution of sanctioning institutions: an experimental approach to the social contract

“…A county would have to pay its sheriff even if nobody commits a crime. We tried to model this as 'pool-punishment' (for experimental papers, see Yamagishi 1986;Guillen et al 2006;Kamei et al 2011;Markussen et al 2011;Traulsen et al 2012; for theory, see Sigmund et al 2010Sigmund et al , 2011. Players who want to use such a sanctioning tool have to pay a fee, even before the joint enterprise takes place, or at least before they are informed of its outcome, and thus before they know whether there will be any exploiters to punish.…”

Institution Design in Social Dilemmas: How to Design If You Must?

“…Notable exceptions are Guillen, Schwieren, and Staffiero (2007), looking at a step-level public good with multiple (cooperative) equilibria, and, more relevant to the present study, Tyran and Feld (2006) who address the question of whether a "mild law", i.e., a punishment mechanism that is too weak to enforce cooperation, may nevertheless lead to a high level of contributions. They find two remarkable effects: (i) "mild law" does not lead to higher cooperation rates if exogenously imposed, but (ii) when endogenously introduced, cooperation is boosted.…”

“…e.g. Potters, Sefton and Vesterlund (2005), Sutter, Haigner and Kocher (2005), or Guillen, Schwieren and Staffiero (2007), 'voting-with-one's-feet' was used by Gürerk, Irlenbusch and Rockenbach (2006) or Rockenbach and Milinski (2006). Kosfeld, Okada and Riedl (forthc.…”