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The Circulation of Worthless Tokens Aids Cooperation: An Experiment Inspired by the Kula

Author

Listed:
  • Giuseppe Danese

    (Philosophy Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania, 313 Claudia Cohen Hall, 249 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA)

  • Luigi Mittone

    (Dipartimento di Economia e Management and CEEL, Università di Trento, Via Inama, 5, 38121 Trento (TN), Italy)

Abstract

Many anthropological records exist of seemingly worthless tokens exchanged in traditional societies. The most famous instances of such tokens are probably the Kula necklaces and armbands first described by B. Malinowski. In our experiment, each participant can send a token to another participant before each round of a repeated public good game. We use as examples of tokens a bracelet built by the participants in the lab, a simple piece of cardboard provided by the experimenter, and an object brought from home by the participants. Notwithstanding the cheap-talk nature of the decision to send the token, both sending and receiving the token are associated with a significant increase in contributions to the public good. Regression analysis shows that contributions to the public good in the treatments featuring a bracelet and a cardboard piece are higher than in a control study. The home object appears not to have been equally useful in increasing contributions.

Suggested Citation

  • Giuseppe Danese & Luigi Mittone, 2018. "The Circulation of Worthless Tokens Aids Cooperation: An Experiment Inspired by the Kula," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-20, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:9:y:2018:i:3:p:63-:d:167324
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    References listed on IDEAS

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