IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v24y2012i4p461-484.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An alternative mechanism through which economic inequality facilitates collective action: Wealth disparities as a sign of cooperativeness

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Johnson

    (Atkinson Graduate School of Management, Willamette University, USA)

  • Oleg Smirnov

    (Department of Political Science, Stony Brook University, USA)

Abstract

Past models treat economic inequality as an exogenous condition that can provide individuals a dominant incentive to produce collective goods unilaterally. Here we part with that tradition so as to treat economic inequality and collective action as endogenous, and to examine whether economic inequality can foster collective action even when all individuals can gain from free-riding. Using evolutionary game theory and computer simulations, we study whether cooperation can evolve when agents play multiple, one-shot prisoner’s dilemma (PD) games per generation and employ strategies that condition cooperative play on their game partners’ wealth holdings. In this game environment, we find that collective action succeeds via a strategy in which players choose to cooperate when joining a PD with an economic equal and defect when partnered with a player possessing wealth holdings unequal to their own. These results signal an alternative avenue through which economic inequality can influence the viability of collective action.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Johnson & Oleg Smirnov, 2012. "An alternative mechanism through which economic inequality facilitates collective action: Wealth disparities as a sign of cooperativeness," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 461-484, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:24:y:2012:i:4:p:461-484
    DOI: 10.1177/0951629812448236
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629812448236
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951629812448236?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2000. "Participation in Heterogeneous Communities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 847-904.
    2. Bendor, Jonathan & Swistak, Piotr, 1997. "The Evolutionary Stability of Cooperation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(2), pages 290-307, June.
    3. Cornes,Richard & Sandler,Todd, 1996. "The Theory of Externalities, Public Goods, and Club Goods," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521477185, October.
    4. Johnson, Ronald N & Libecap, Gary D, 1982. "Contracting Problems and Regulation: The Case of the Fishery," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1005-1022, December.
    5. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
    6. Baland, J-M & Platteau, J-P, 1997. "Wealth Inequality and Efficiency in the Commons," Papers 193, Notre-Dame de la Paix, Sciences Economiques et Sociales.
    7. Bardhan, Pranab & Ghatak, Maitreesh & Karaivanov, Alexander, 2007. "Wealth inequality and collective action," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1843-1874, September.
    8. James H. Fowler & Tim Johnson & Oleg Smirnov, 2005. "Egalitarian motive and altruistic punishment," Nature, Nature, vol. 433(7021), pages 1-1, January.
    9. Christopher T. Dawes & James H. Fowler & Tim Johnson & Richard McElreath & Oleg Smirnov, 2007. "Egalitarian motives in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 446(7137), pages 794-796, April.
    10. Lazear, Edward P, 1989. "Pay Equality and Industrial Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 561-580, June.
    11. Rick L. Riolo & Michael D. Cohen & Robert Axelrod, 2001. "Evolution of cooperation without reciprocity," Nature, Nature, vol. 414(6862), pages 441-443, November.
    12. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6685), pages 573-577, June.
    13. Baland, Jean-Marie & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 1998. "Wealth Inequality and Efficiency in the Commons, Part II: The Regulated Case," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(1), pages 1-22, January.
    14. N. Shanmugaratnam, 1996. "Nationalisation, Privatisation and the dilemmas of common property management in Western Rajasthan," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 163-187.
    15. M.A. Nowak & K. Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity by Image Scoring/ The Dynamics of Indirect Reciprocity," Working Papers ir98040, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    16. Toshio Yamagishi & Satoshi Kanazawa & Rie Mashima & Shigeru Terai, 2005. "Separating Trust from Cooperation in a Dynamic Relationship," Rationality and Society, , vol. 17(3), pages 275-308, August.
    17. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kihiu, Evelyne Nyathira, 2016. "Basic capability effect: Collective management of pastoral resources in southwestern Kenya," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 23-34.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baland, Jean-Marie & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 2003. "Economics of common property management regimes," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 127-190, Elsevier.
    2. Gregor, Martin, 2015. "Task divisions in teams with complementary tasks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 102-120.
    3. Alexander Karaivanov, 2009. "Heterogeneity, returns to scale, and collective action," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 771-807, May.
    4. Jeff Dayton-Johnson & Pranab Bardhan, 2002. "Inequality And Conservation On The Local Commons: A Theoretical Exercise," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 577-602, July.
    5. Martin Gregor, 2011. "Tradeoffs of foreign assistance for the weakest-link global public goods," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(2), pages 233-251, April.
    6. Ana Arjona & Juan Camilo Cárdenas & Ana María Ibáñez & Patricia Justino & Julián Arteaga, 2019. "Desigualdad económica y participación en organizaciones sociales en Colombia," Documentos CEDE 17412, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    7. Bardhan, Pranab & Ghatak, Maitreesh & Karaivanov, Alexander, 2007. "Wealth inequality and collective action," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1843-1874, September.
    8. Fijnanda van Klingeren, 2020. "Playing nice in the sandbox: On the role of heterogeneity, trust and cooperation in common-pool resources," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-36, August.
    9. Fijnanda van Klingeren & Nan Dirk de Graaf, 2021. "Heterogeneity, trust and common-pool resource management," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 11(1), pages 37-64, March.
    10. Liu, Xiaoying & Sarr, Mare & Swanson, Timothy, 2014. "Resistance to the Regulation of Common Resources in Rural Tunisia," RFF Working Paper Series dp-14-17-efd, Resources for the Future.
    11. Uler, Neslihan, 2009. "Public goods provision and redistributive taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 440-453, April.
    12. Varughese, George & Ostrom, Elinor, 2001. "The Contested Role of Heterogeneity in Collective Action: Some Evidence from Community Forestry in Nepal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 747-765, May.
    13. Liang, Pinghan & Meng, Juanjuan, 2016. "Favor transmission and social image concern: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 14-21.
    14. Ben-Ner, Avner & Putterman, Louis & Kong, Fanmin & Magan, Dan, 2004. "Reciprocity in a two-part dictator game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 333-352, March.
    15. Bogliacino, Francesco & Codagnone, Cristiano, 2021. "Microfoundations, behaviour, and evolution: Evidence from experiments," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 372-385.
    16. Mayuko Nakamaru & Akira Yokoyama, 2014. "The Effect of Ostracism and Optional Participation on the Evolution of Cooperation in the Voluntary Public Goods Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-9, September.
    17. Yutaka Nakai, 2014. "In-group favoritism due to friend selection strategies based on fixed tag and within-group reputation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 26(3), pages 320-354, August.
    18. Debraj Ray & Jean-Marie Baland & Olivier Dagnelie, 2007. "Inequality and Inefficiency in Joint Projects," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 922-935, July.
    19. Servátka, Maros, 2010. "Does generosity generate generosity? An experimental study of reputation effects in a dictator game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 11-17, January.
    20. Engelmann, Dirk & Fischbacher, Urs, 2009. "Indirect reciprocity and strategic reputation building in an experimental helping game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 399-407, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:24:y:2012:i:4:p:461-484. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.