Monetary and Nonmonetary Punishment in the Voluntary Contributions Mechanism

Abstract

In this paper we replicate and extend the experiment of Fehr and Gaechter (2000) that analyzes the effect of an opportunity to punish others on the level contributions in the Voluntary Contributions Mechanism. The punishment is costly for both the players distributing and those receiving the punishment. Like Fehr and Gaechter, we find that agents often engage in noncredible costly punishment behavior in order to reduce earnings of others who contribute low amounts to the public good. The availability of punishment increases average contributions sharply. Here, we also introduce a second treatment, identical to the first treatment, except that the "punishment" is non-monetary. The assignment of "non-monetary" punishment points does not reduce the payoff of any agent, but it can be used to register disapproval of others' contribution levels. We find that the existence of the possibility of "non-monetary" punishment alone increases the average level of contributions and earnings, though by less than the monetary punishment. This suggests that the increase in cooperation observed by Fehr and Gaechter is not only due to the possibility of monetary penalties, but also from the opportunity of others to express their disapproval of free riding behavior.

Punish or perish? Retaliation and collaboration among humans

“…Economists use experimental games to study the effects of positive and negative incentives (i.e. reward and punishment) on our propensity to collaborate [6,7]; anthropologists visit small-scale societies to measure the culture-dependence and universality of norms that enforce cooperation [8]; psychologists study the often sub-conscious cues eliciting emotions that lead to helping behaviour or moralistic aggression [9][10][11]; neurologists use magnetic resonance techniques to correlate social dilemmas with brain activities [12,13]; game theorists modify their utility functions to take account of non-monetary concerns [14,15]; biologists look for signs of policing and sanctions in bees or bacteria [16,17]; and political scientists attempt to improve governance of institutions promoting collective actions [18,19]. Trans-disciplinary dialogues are in full swing, although communication sometimes needs improving [20].…”

Centralized sanctioning and legitimate authority promote cooperation in humans

“…Most empirical work on the role sanctioning plays in inducing cooperation has focused on testing evolutionary models of diffused and decentralized punishment (9,13), and explored the relative efficiency of different peer-sanctioning institutions (14)(15)(16). However, scholars have recently begun questioning the ability of spontaneous, uncoordinated, and decentralized peer punishment actions to sustain cooperation in complex societies (17,18), concluding that "the step from peer punishment to the establishment of sanctioning institutions deserve closer future investigations" (ref.…”

Les conditions d’efficacite de la pression par les pairs, ou comment faire respecter les normes sociales au sein des organisations

“…Dès lors comment expliquer les résultats issus des expériences en laboratoire à partir de jeux de contribution volontaire au fi nancement de bien publics avec opportunité de sanctionner les passagers clandestins qui montrent que les individus n'hésitent pas à sanctionner leurs pairs alors que sanctionner est couteux [Fehr et Gaechter 2000 ;Masclet et al 2003 ;Bochet, Page et Rutterman 2006 ;Anderson et Putterman 2006 ;Carpenter 2007]? Une explication souvent avancée dans la littérature est que si les individus sont suffi samment averses à l'inégalité ils peuvent être incités à sanctionner les passagers clandestins afi n de réduire les dissonances de gains et cela même s'il existe un cout à sanctionner.…”

“…Le respect de ces normes passe par la mise en place de mécanismes de contrôle et de sanctions par les pairs. En eff et, de nombreux travaux ont mis en exergue le fait que les membres d'un groupe n'hésitent pas à sanctionner d'une manière ou d'une autre leurs pairs dès lors que ceux-ci dévient de la norme établie au sein du groupe de façon évidente et excessive [Francis 1985 ;Coleman 1990 ;Kandel et Lazear 1992 ;Miller 1992 ;Franck 1994 ;Fehr et Gaechter 2000 ;Masclet et al 2003 ;Bochet et al 2006;Anderson et Putterman 2006;Carpenter 2007]. Un exemple du contrôle mutuel dans les équipes de production est celui des Kanbans japonais [Aoki 1986] 1 .…”