In Broad Daylight: Fuller Information and Higher-Order Punishment Opportunities Can Promote Cooperation

Abstract

The expectation that non-cooperators will be punished can help to sustain cooperation, but there are competing claims about whether opportunities to engage in higher-order punishment (punishing punishment or failure to punish) help or undermine cooperation in social dilemmas. Varying treatments of a voluntary contributions experiment, we find that availability of higher-order punishment opportunities increases cooperation and efficiency when subjects have full information on the pattern of punishing and its history, when any subject can punish any other, and when the numbers of punishment and of contribution stages are not too unequal.

Keywords: collective action, social dilemma, voluntary contribution, public goods, punishment, counter-punishment, higher-order punishment

JEL Classification: C9, H41, D0