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Third party punishment and criminal behavior: an experiment with Italian Camorra prison inmates

Author

Listed:
  • Annamaria Nese

    (Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Statistiche, Università degli Studi di Salerno)

  • Arturo Palomba

    (Università di Napoli II- SUN.)

  • Patrizia Sbriglia

    (Università di Napoli II - SUN.)

  • Maurizio Scudiero

    (Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Statistiche, Università degli Studi di Salerno)

Abstract

In Third Party punishment experiments (Fehr et al.; 2004), an agent may be punished for violating a social norm by an uninvolved observer - or third party - whose payoff is unaffected by the behavior of the same agent. In our research, we attempt to improve the understanding of Third Party punishment by reproducing an experiment conducted by Fehr et al. 2004 (TP-PD) with a sample of Camorra prison inmates. We then compare the decisions of the Camorra inmates with the behavior of university students with similar social and economic backgrounds. Our primary conclusion is that there are significant differences in cooperative and sanctioning behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Annamaria Nese & Arturo Palomba & Patrizia Sbriglia & Maurizio Scudiero, 2012. "Third party punishment and criminal behavior: an experiment with Italian Camorra prison inmates," Working Papers 3_226, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Statistiche, Università degli Studi di Salerno.
    • Handle: RePEc:sep:wpaper:3_226
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    File URL: http://www.dises.unisa.it/RePEc/sep/wpaper/3_226.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Jeffrey R. Kling & Jens Ludwig & Lawrence F. Katz, 2005. "Neighborhood Effects on Crime for Female and Male Youth: Evidence from a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 87-130.
    3. Selten, Reinhard & Abbink, Klaus & Buchta, Joachim & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2003. "How to play (3 x 3)-games.: A strategy method experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 19-37, October.
    4. Block, Michael K & Gerety, Vernon E, 1995. "Some Experimental Evidence on Differences between Student and Prisoner Reactions to Monetary Penalties and Risk," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 123-138, January.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Third Party Punishment and Social Norms," IEW - Working Papers 106, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    6. Thorsten Chmura & Christoph Engel & Markus Englerth & Thomas Pitz, 2010. "At the Mercy of the Prisoner Next Door. Using an Experimental Measure of Selfishness as a Criminological Tool," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2010_27, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    7. Birkeland, Sigbjørn & Cappelen, Alexander W. & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2011. "Immoral criminals? An experimental study of social preferences among prisoners," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 15/2011, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
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    Cited by:

    1. Meier, Stephan & Pierce, Lamar & Vaccaro, Antonino, 2014. "Trust and In-Group Favoritism in a Culture of Crime," IZA Discussion Papers 8169, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Meier, Stephan & Pierce, Lamar & Vaccaro, Antonino & La Cara, Barbara, 2016. "Trust and in-group favoritism in a culture of crime," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 78-92.
    3. Nese, Annamaria & O'Higgins, Niall & Sbriglia, Patrizia & Scudiero, Maurizio, 2018. "Cooperation, punishment and organized crime: a lab-in-the-field experiment in southern Italy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 86-98.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Camorra; prison inmates; social values; social norms; sanction; punishment; reciprocity; social preference; third party; normative criteria; laboratory experiment.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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