IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v21y2009i3p359-392.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Higher Punishment, Less Control?

Author

Listed:
  • Heiko Rauhut

    (ETH Zurich, Chair of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation, UNO C15, Universitätstrasse 41, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland,rauhut@gess.ethz.ch)

Abstract

Rational choice theory predicts for higher punishment less crime. However, many field studies could not support this conclusion. A game theoretic approach can explain these puzzling findings because it takes not only criminals' but also control agents' rationality into account. Mixed Nash equilibria predict for higher punishment less control and no effect on crime rates. A new experimental design is introduced to test game theoretic hypotheses. 196 subjects have been partitioned into `inspectees' who can steal money from each other and `inspectors' who can invest in control activities to catch inspectees. Static and dynamic analyses show that strategic interaction plays an important role for crime and punishment. However, effects are not as strong as predicted. Higher punishment indeed causes less control, but crime is deterred as well. Furthermore, dynamical analyses with the learning model fictitious play reveal that humans learn only slowly in inspection situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Heiko Rauhut, 2009. "Higher Punishment, Less Control?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 21(3), pages 359-392, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:21:y:2009:i:3:p:359-392
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463109337876
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463109337876
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463109337876?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. Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David, 1998. "Learning in games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 631-639, May.
    2. Brams Steven J., 1994. "Game Theory and Literature," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 32-54, January.
    3. Simon G�chter & Arno Riedl, "undated". "Moral Property Rights in Bargaining," IEW - Working Papers 113, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    4. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    6. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    7. repec:bla:kyklos:v:41:y:1988:i:2:p:301-23 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    9. George Tsebelis, 1990. "Penalty has no Impact on Crime:," Rationality and Society, , vol. 2(3), pages 255-286, July.
    10. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2002. ""Crime" in the lab-detecting social interaction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 859-869, May.
    11. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    12. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta & Oscar Volij, 2008. "Experientia Docet: Professionals Play Minimax in Laboratory Experiments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(1), pages 71-115, January.
    13. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Third Party Punishment and Social Norms," IEW - Working Papers 106, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    14. Fudenberg Drew & Kreps David M., 1993. "Learning Mixed Equilibria," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 320-367, July.
    15. Samuel Cameron, 1988. "The Economics of Crime Deterrence: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 301-323, May.
    16. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, 2003. "Professionals Play Minimax," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 395-415.
    17. Moschini, GianCarlo, 2004. "Nash equilibrium in strictly competitive games: live play in soccer," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 365-371, December.
    18. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    19. Simon Gächter & Arno Riedl, 2005. "Moral Property Rights in Bargaining with Infeasible Claims," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 249-263, February.
    20. Bruno S. Frey, 1994. "How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 334-352, July.
    21. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2003. "Risk averse behavior in generalized matching pennies games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 97-113, October.
    22. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    23. Anderson, Christopher M. & Putterman, Louis, 2006. "Do non-strategic sanctions obey the law of demand? The demand for punishment in the voluntary contribution mechanism," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 1-24, January.
    24. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    25. Mark Walker & John Wooders, 2001. "Minimax Play at Wimbledon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1521-1538, December.
    26. P.-A. Chiappori, 2002. "Testing Mixed-Strategy Equilibria When Players Are Heterogeneous: The Case of Penalty Kicks in Soccer," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1138-1151, September.
    27. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2002. "Altruistic punishment in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6868), pages 137-140, January.
    28. repec:bla:kyklos:v:42:y:1989:i:3:p:405-30 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Shachat, Jason M., 2002. "Mixed Strategy Play and the Minimax Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 189-226, May.
    30. Tsebelis, George, 1989. "The Abuse of Probability in Political Analysis: The Robinson Crusoe Fallacy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 77-91, March.
    31. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 1998. "The Theory of Learning in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061945, April.
    32. Karl‐Dieter Opp, 1989. "Economics of Crime and the Sociology of Deviant Behaviour A Theoretical Confrontation of Basic Propositions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 405-430, August.
    33. Rapoport, Amnon & Boebel, Richard B., 1992. "Mixed strategies in strictly competitive games: A further test of the minimax hypothesis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 261-283, April.
    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. Christoph Engel, 2016. "Experimental Criminal Law. A Survey of Contributions from Law, Economics and Criminology," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2016_07, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    2. Anne-Christine Barthel & Eric Hoffmann, 2019. "Rationalizability and learning in games with strategic heterogeneity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(3), pages 565-587, April.
    3. Daniele Nosenzo & Theo Offerman & Martin Sefton & Ailko van der Veen, 2016. "Discretionary Sanctions and Rewards in the Repeated Inspection Game," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 502-517, February.
    4. Daniele Nosenzo & Theo Offerman & Martin Sefton & Ailko van der Veen, 2010. "Inducing Good Behavior: Bonuses versus Fines in Inspection Games," Discussion Papers 2010-21, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    5. Heiko Rauhut & Marcel Junker, 2009. "Punishment Deters Crime Because Humans Are Bounded in Their Strategic Decision-Making," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 12(3), pages 1-1.
    6. Susumu Shikano & Michael F Stoffel & Markus Tepe, 2017. "Information accuracy in legislative oversight: Theoretical implications and experimental evidence," Rationality and Society, , vol. 29(2), pages 226-254, May.
    7. Lu Gram & Rolando Granados & Eva M. Krockow & Nayreen Daruwalla & David Osrin, 2021. "Modelling collective action to change social norms around domestic violence: social dilemmas and the role of altruism," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Chaudhuri, Ananish & Cruickshank, Amy & Sbai, Erwann, 2015. "Gender differences in personnel management: Some experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 20-32.
    9. Heiko Rauhut, 2015. "Stronger inspection incentives, less crime? Further experimental evidence on inspection games," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(4), pages 414-454, November.
    10. Matteo Rizzolli & Luca Stanca, 2012. "Judicial Errors and Crime Deterrence: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(2), pages 311-338.
    11. Christine Horne & Heiko Rauhut, 2013. "Using laboratory experiments to study law and crime," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 1639-1655, April.
    12. Roger Waldeck, 2016. "Modeling criminality: the impact of emotions, norms and interaction structures," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 135-160, June.
    13. Christine Horne & Heiko Rauhut, "undated". "Using Laboratory Experiments to Study Law and Crime," Working Papers CCSS-10-010, ETH Zurich, Chair of Systems Design.
    14. Schneider, Andreas, 2019. "Deterrence Theory in Paraguay: Exploring Fraud and Violation of Trust Cases," MPRA Paper 102204, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Deutsch, Yael & Golany, Boaz & Rothblum, Uriel G., 2011. "Determining all Nash equilibria in a (bi-linear) inspection game," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 215(2), pages 422-430, December.
    16. Daniele Nosenzo & Theo Offerman & Martin Sefton & Ailko van der Veen, 2010. "Inducing Good Behavior: Bonuses versus Fines in Inspection Games," Discussion Papers 2010-21, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    17. Andreas Schneider, 2019. "Deterrence Theory in Paraguay: Exploring Fraud and Violation of Trust Cases," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, January.

    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. Heiko Rauhut & Marcel Junker, 2009. "Punishment Deters Crime Because Humans Are Bounded in Their Strategic Decision-Making," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 12(3), pages 1-1.
    2. Heiko Rauhut, 2015. "Stronger inspection incentives, less crime? Further experimental evidence on inspection games," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(4), pages 414-454, November.
    3. Fluet, Claude & Galbiati, Rpbertp, 2016. "Lois et normes : les enseignements de l'économie comportementale," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 92(1-2), pages 191-215, Mars-Juin.
    4. Leibbrandt, Andreas & López-Pérez, Raúl, 2012. "An exploration of third and second party punishment in ten simple games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 753-766.
    5. Spiliopoulos, Leonidas, 2013. "Beyond fictitious play beliefs: Incorporating pattern recognition and similarity matching," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 69-85.
    6. Nikos Nikiforakis & Dirk Engelmann, 2008. "Feuds in the Laboratory? A Social Dilemma Experiment," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1058, The University of Melbourne.
    7. Sean Duffy & J. J. Naddeo & David Owens & John Smith, 2024. "Cognitive Load and Mixed Strategies: On Brains and Minimax," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 26(03), pages 1-34, September.
    8. Cason, Timothy N. & Friedman, Daniel & Hopkins, Ed, 2010. "Testing the TASP: An experimental investigation of learning in games with unstable equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2309-2331, November.
    9. Reuben, Ernesto & Riedl, Arno, 2013. "Enforcement of contribution norms in public good games with heterogeneous populations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 122-137.
    10. Leibbrandt, Andreas & López-Pérez, Raúl, 2011. "Individual Heterogeneity in Punishment and Reward," Working Papers in Economic Theory 2011/01, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), Department of Economic Analysis (Economic Theory and Economic History).
    11. Bigoni, Maria & Bortolotti, Stefania & Nas Özen, Efşan, 2021. "Economic polarization and antisocial behavior: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 387-401.
    12. Leibbrandt, Andreas & López-Pérez, Raúl & Spiegelman, Eli, 2023. "Reciprocal, but inequality averse as well? Mixed motives for punishment and reward," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 91-116.
    13. Weng, Qian & Carlsson, Fredrik, 2015. "Cooperation in teams: The role of identity, punishment, and endowment distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 25-38.
    14. Brownback, Andy & Kuhn, Michael A., 2019. "Understanding outcome bias," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 342-360.
    15. Charles Noussair & Marc Willinger, 2011. "Mixed strategies in an unprofitable game: an experiment," Working Papers 11-19, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Nov 2011.
    16. Marie Claire Villeval, 2012. "Contribution au bien public et préférences sociales : Apports récents de l'économie comportementale," Post-Print halshs-00681348, HAL.
    17. Christian Thöni, 2014. "Inequality aversion and antisocial punishment," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 529-545, April.
    18. Kenju Kamei & Louis Putterman, 2018. "Reputation Transmission Without Benefit To The Reporter: A Behavioral Underpinning Of Markets In Experimental Focus," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 158-172, January.
    19. David Masclet & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2006. "Punishment, Inequality and Emotions," Working Papers 0604, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    20. Emara, Noha & Owens, David & Smith, John & Wilmer, Lisa, 2017. "Serial correlation in National Football League play calling and its effects on outcomes," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 125-132.

    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:ratsoc:v:21:y:2009:i:3:p:359-392. 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.