(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
The logic of costly punishment reversed: Expropriation of free-riders and outsiders
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cge/wacage/315.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The logic of costly punishment reversed: Expropriation of free-riders and outsiders

Author

Listed:
  • Hugh-Jones, David

    (University of East Anglia)

  • Perroni, Carlo

    (University of Warwick)

Abstract

Current literature views the punishment of free-riders as an under-supplied public good, carried out by individuals at a cost to themselves. It need not be so: often, free-riders’ property can be forcibly appropriated by a coordinated group. This power makes punishment profitable, but it can also be abused. It is easier to contain abuses, and focus group punishment on free-riders, in societies where coordinated expropriation is harder. Our theory explains why public goods are undersupplied in heterogenous communities: because groups target minorities instead of free-riders. In our laboratory experiment, outcomes were more efficient when coordination was more difficult, while outgroup members were targeted more than ingroup members, and reacted differently to punishment

Suggested Citation

  • Hugh-Jones, David & Perroni, Carlo, 2017. "The logic of costly punishment reversed: Expropriation of free-riders and outsiders," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 315, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:315
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/315-2017_perroni.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Platteau, J.P., 1996. "Traditional Sharing Norms as an Obstacle to Economic Growth in Tribal Societies," Papers 173, Notre-Dame de la Paix, Sciences Economiques et Sociales.
    2. Vincent P. Crawford & Uri Gneezy & Yuval Rottenstreich, 2008. "The Power of Focal Points Is Limited: Even Minute Payoff Asymmetry May Yield Large Coordination Failures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1443-1458, September.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2000. "Participation in Heterogeneous Communities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 847-904.
    4. Zerbe, Richard O. & Anderson, C. Leigh, 2001. "Culture And Fairness In The Development Of Institutions In The California Gold Fields," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(1), pages 114-143, March.
    5. Aumann, Robert J., 1974. "Subjectivity and correlation in randomized strategies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 67-96, March.
    6. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & William Easterly, 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1243-1284.
    8. Easterly, William, 2001. "Can Institutions Resolve Ethnic Conflict?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(4), pages 687-706, July.
    9. Anna Dreber & David G. Rand & Drew Fudenberg & Martin A. Nowak, 2008. "Winners don’t punish," Nature, Nature, vol. 452(7185), pages 348-351, March.
    10. Easterly, William, 2001. "The Middle Class Consensus and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 317-335, December.
    11. Crawford, Vincent P & Haller, Hans, 1990. "Learning How to Cooperate: Optimal Play in Repeated Coordination Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(3), pages 571-595, May.
    12. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    13. Henrich, Joseph & Boyd, Robert & Bowles, Samuel & Camerer, Colin & Fehr, Ernst & Gintis, Herbert (ed.), 2004. "Foundations of Human Sociality: Economic Experiments and Ethnographic Evidence from Fifteen Small-Scale Societies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199262052.
    14. Mayshary, Joram & Moav, Omer & Neeman, Zvika & Pascali, Luigi, 2015. "Cereals Appropriability and Hierarchy," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 238, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    15. Casari, Marco & Luini, Luigi, 2009. "Cooperation under alternative punishment institutions: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 273-282, August.
    16. Shaun Hargreaves-Heap & Yanis Varoufakis, 2002. "Some Experimental Evidence On The Evolution Of Discrimination, Co--Operation And Perceptions Of Fairness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 679-703, July.
    17. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 2005. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity," Nature, Nature, vol. 437(7063), pages 1291-1298, October.
    18. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Third Party Punishment and Social Norms," IEW - Working Papers 106, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    19. David Friedman, 1999. "Why Not Hang Them All: The Virtues of Inefficient Punishment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 259-269, December.
    20. Skaperdas, Stergios, 1992. "Cooperation, Conflict, and Power in the Absence of Property Rights," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 720-739, September.
    21. Habyarimana, James & Humphreys, Macartan & Posner, Daniel N. & Weinstein, Jeremy M., 2007. "Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(4), pages 709-725, November.
    22. Weingast, Barry R., 1997. "The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of the Law," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(2), pages 245-263, June.
    23. Umbeck, John, 1977. "The California gold rush: A study of emerging property rights," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 197-226, July.
    24. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    25. Stewart, James I., 2009. "Cooperation when N is large: Evidence from the mining camps of the American West," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 213-225, March.
    26. Ananish Chaudhuri, 2011. "Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: a selective survey of the literature," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(1), pages 47-83, March.
    27. Edward Miguel, 2005. "Poverty and Witch Killing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 1153-1172.
    28. David G. Rand & Alexander Peysakhovich & Gordon T. Kraft-Todd & George E. Newman & Owen Wurzbacher & Martin A. Nowak & Joshua D. Greene, 2014. "Social heuristics shape intuitive cooperation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12, May.
    29. Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap & Daniel John Zizzo, 2009. "The Value of Groups," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 295-323, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tilahun Dires & Derjew Fentie & Yeneneh Hunie & Worku Nega & Mulugeta Tenaw & Sayeh Kassaw Agegnehu & Reinfried Mansberger, 2021. "Assessing the Impacts of Expropriation and Compensation on Livelihood of Farmers: The Case of Peri-Urban Debre Markos, Ethiopia," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-16, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Hugh-Jones & Carlo Perroni, 2015. "Why are heterogeneous communities inefficient? Theory, history, and an experiment," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 15-08, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    2. Mike Brock, 2018. "Is the Monster Green-Eyed, or just Green? Assessing the Impact of Group Cohesion and Environmental Attitudes on Energy Conservation Habits," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2018-04, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    3. Simon Gaechter & Benedikt Herrmann, 2008. "Reciprocity, culture, and human cooperation: Previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment," Discussion Papers 2008-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    4. Nikos Nikiforakis & Helen Mitchell, 2014. "Mixing the carrots with the sticks: third party punishment and reward," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-23, March.
    5. Konstantin Chatziathanasiou & Svenja Hippel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2020. "Property, Redistribution, and the Status Quo," Munich Papers in Political Economy 02, Munich School of Politics and Public Policy and the School of Management at the Technical University of Munich.
    6. Lorenz Goette & David Huffman & Stephan Meier & Matthias Sutter, 2010. "Group Membership, Competition, and Altruistic versus Antisocial Punishment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Army Groups," Working Papers 2010-24, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    7. KAMEI Kenju, 2022. "Self-regulatory Resources and Institutional Formation: A first experimental test," Discussion papers 22084, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    8. Sarah Jacobson & Ragan Petrie, 2014. "Favor trading in public good provision," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(3), pages 439-460, September.
    9. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    10. Barr, Abigail & Packard, Truman & Serra, Danila, 2014. "Participatory accountability and collective action: Experimental evidence from Albania," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 250-269.
    11. Chakravarty, Surajeet & Fonseca, Miguel A., 2014. "The effect of social fragmentation on public good provision: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-9.
    12. Vicente Calabuig & Natalia Jimenez & Gonzalo Olcina & Ismael Rodriguez-Lara, 2019. "United we stand: On the benefits of coordinated punishment," Working Papers 19.01, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    13. Goeschl, Timo & Jarke, Johannes, 2013. "Second vs. Third Party Punishment under Costly Monitoringː A New Experimental Method and Evidence," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 6, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    14. Noblit, Graham Alexander & Henrich, Joseph, 2023. "The Evolution of Ostracism in Human Societies," SocArXiv z3gs7, Center for Open Science.
    15. Konstantin Chatziathanasiou & Svenja Hippel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2021. "Property, redistribution, and the status quo: a laboratory study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 919-951, September.
    16. Gerring, John & Thacker, Strom C. & Lu, Yuan & Huang, Wei, 2015. "Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 166-188.
    17. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Garagnani, Michele, 2020. "The cognitive foundations of cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 71-85.
    18. Kenju Kamei & Louis Putterman, 2018. "Reputation Transmission Without Benefit To The Reporter: A Behavioral Underpinning Of Markets In Experimental Focus," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 158-172, January.
    19. Paetzel, Fabian & Sausgruber, Rupert, 2018. "Cognitive ability and in-group bias: An experimental study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 280-292.
    20. de Melo, Gioia & Piaggio, Matías, 2015. "The perils of peer punishment: Evidence from a common pool resource framed field experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 376-393.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cooperation; Costly punishment; Group coercion; Heterogeneity JEL Classification: H1; H4; N4; D02;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:315. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jane Snape (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.