Decentralized Peer Punishment in Social Dilemmas: Identification at the Individual Level, Type Heterogeneity, and Consistency across Games

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Sebastian Kube
• Subject Area: Economic Policy, Applied Economics
• Term: from 2014 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 255320330

The focus of the project is the detailed analysis of peer punishment at the "individual level". A large body of research (not only) in experimental economics has highlighted the role of peer punishment as an important mechanism to foster cooperation in social dilemmas. However, there is no systematic analysis of punishment profiles at the individual level, i.e., how individuals condition their punishment on the behavior of their peers. The project uses a set of laboratory experiments to shed light on this question. In particular, it exploits a novel experimental economic approach - a strategy method at the punishment stage of a linear public goods-game - to elicit individual punishment profiles as a function of the peers' contribution behavior. The approach solves the obvious simultaneity between cooperation and punishment and provides individual level data on a sequence of punishment decisions. Based on these data we discuss various strategies to classify different punishment profiles. The project analyzes the distribution of heterogeneous punishment profiles in a population of experimental subjects and studies to which extent punishment profiles correspond to contribution patterns (i.e., the way people behave in the social dilemma per se, e.g., conditional contributors). This allows introducing a two-dimensional classification of behavioral patterns at the individual level. In a further step of analysis, the project explores the implications of individual type heterogeneity for behavioral dynamics in repeated social dilemmas. To do so, we exogenously vary the compositions of punishment profiles within a group. Finally, the project analyzes the stability of punishment profiles across different types of social dilemmas.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants