The Limits of Self-Governance in the Presence of Spite: Experimental Evidence from Urban and Rural Russia

Gaechter, Simon; Herrmann, Benedikt

doi:10.2139/ssrn.923547

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The Limits of Self-Governance in the Presence of Spite: Experimental Evidence from Urban and Rural Russia

IZA Discussion Paper No. 2236

33 Pages Posted: 10 Aug 2006 Last revised: 20 Apr 2023

See all articles by Simon Gaechter

Simon Gaechter

University of Nottingham; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Benedikt Herrmann

University of Nottingham - School of Economics

Abstract

We report evidence from public goods experiments with and without punishment which we conducted in Russia with 566 urban and rural participants of young and mature age cohorts. Russia is interesting for studying voluntary cooperation because of its long history of collectivism, and a huge urban-rural gap. In contrast to previous experiments we find no cooperation-enhancing effect of punishment. An important reason is that there is substantial spiteful punishment of high contributors in all four subject pools. Thus, spite undermines the scope for self-governance in the sense of high levels of voluntary cooperation that are sustained by sanctioning free riders only.

Keywords: social norms, free riding, punishment, spite, experiments

JEL Classification: H41, C91, D23, C72

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Gachter, Simon and Herrmann, Benedikt, The Limits of Self-Governance in the Presence of Spite: Experimental Evidence from Urban and Rural Russia. IZA Discussion Paper No. 2236, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=923547 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.923547