Evolution of cooperation in the indefinitely repeated collective action with a contest for power

71 Pages Posted: 21 Sep 2022

See all articles by Yaroslav Rosokha

Yaroslav Rosokha

Purdue University - Krannert School of Management

Xinxin Lyu

Purdue University - Department of Economics

Denis Tverskoi

DySoC/NIMBioS

Sergey Gavrilets

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Date Written: August 31, 2022

Abstract

Social and political inequality among individuals is a common driving force behind the breakdown in cooperation. In this paper, we theoretically and experimentally study cooperation among individuals faced with a sequence of collective-action problems in which the benefits to cooperation are divided according to political power that is obtained through a contest. We have three main results. First, we find that cooperation predictably responds to the fundamental parameters of the collective-action problem. Specifically, it is increasing in the benefit to cooperation and how much benefit is gained from partial group cooperation, and decreasing in the number of players. Second, we find that when players are unrestricted in their expenditures in the contest, cooperation is much lower than when expenditures are set to a specific proportion of earnings. Finally, we find that individual norms and beliefs account for a substantial proportion of explained variance in individuals' decisions to cooperate.

Keywords: Cooperation, Contest, Dynamic Coordination Games, Indefinitely Repeated Games, Experimental Design, Beliefs, Individual and Social Norms

JEL Classification: C73, C92, D91

Suggested Citation

Rosokha, Yaroslav and Lyu, Xinxin and Tverskoi, Denis and Gavrilets, Sergey, Evolution of cooperation in the indefinitely repeated collective action with a contest for power (August 31, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4206122 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4206122

Yaroslav Rosokha (Contact Author)

Purdue University - Krannert School of Management ( email )

1310 Krannert Building
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1310
United States

Xinxin Lyu

Purdue University - Department of Economics ( email )

West Lafayette, IN 47907-1310
United States

Denis Tverskoi

DySoC/NIMBioS ( email )

Knoxville, TN 37996
United States

Sergey Gavrilets

University of Tennessee, Knoxville ( email )

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Knoxville, TN 37996
United States

HOME PAGE: http://volweb2.utk.edu/~gavrila/

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