Self-Organization for Collective Action: An Experimental Study of Voting on Sanction Regimes

Autor(en)
Thomas Markussen, Louis Putterman, Jean-Robert Tyran
Abstrakt

Entrusting the power to punish to a central authority is a hallmark of civilization, yet informal or horizontal sanctions have attracted more attention of late. We study experimentally a collective action dilemma and test whether subjects choose a formal sanction scheme that costs less than the surplus it makes possible, as predicted by standard economic theory, or instead opt for the use of informal sanctions (IS) or no sanctions. Our subjects choose, and succeed in using, IS surprisingly often, their voting decisions being responsive to the cost of formal sanctions. Adoption by voting enhances the efficiency of both IS and non-deterrent formal sanctions. Results are qualitatively confirmed under several permutations of the experimental design.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Wiener Zentrum für Experimentelle Wirtschaftsforschung
Externe Organisation(en)
University of Copenhagen, Brown University
Journal
Review of Economic Studies
Band
81
Seiten
301-324
Anzahl der Seiten
24
ISSN
0034-6527
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdt022
Publikationsdatum
01-2014
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
502045 Verhaltensökonomie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Economics and Econometrics
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/selforganization-for-collective-action-an-experimental-study-of-voting-on-sanction-regimes(feb1e8f5-59bf-413d-9523-9b97f327c707).html