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The limits of self-governance when cooperators get punished: Experimental evidence from urban and rural Russia

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Author Info
Simon Gaechter () (University of Nottingham)
Benedikt Herrmann () (University of Nottingham)

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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 punishment of high contributors in all four subject pools. Thus, punishment can also undermine the scope for self-governance in the sense of high levels of voluntary cooperation that are sustained by sanctioning free riders only.

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Paper provided by The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham in its series Discussion Papers with number 2007-11.

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Date of creation: Nov 2007
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Handle: RePEc:cdx:dpaper:2007-11

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Related research
Keywords: social norms; free riding; misdirected punishment; experiments;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

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