The role of institutional incentives and the exemplar in promoting cooperation.

ABSTRACT: People on average do not play their individually rational Nash equilibrium (NE) strategy in game experiments based on the public goods game (PGG) that model social dilemmas. Differences from NE behavior have also been observed in PGG experiments that include incentives to cooperate, especially when these are peer-incentives administered by the players themselves. In our repeated PGG experiment, an institution rewards and punishes individuals based on their contributions. The primary experimental result is that institutions which both reward and punish (IRP) promote cooperation significantly better than either institutions which only punish (IP) or which only reward (IR), and that IP has contribution levels significantly above IR. Although comparing their single-round NE strategies correctl

SUBMITTER: Wu JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5377375 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature