Punishing free-riders: How group size affects mutual monitoring and the provision of public goods

By Jeffrey P. Carpenter. Games Econ. Behav., 2007

420 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Because costly punishment is not credible, subgame perfection suggests that punishment will not deter free riding, regardless of the size or structure of groups. However, experiments show that people will punish free riders, even at considerable cost. To examine the implications of agents who punish, we simulate an environment populated with behavioral strategies seen in the lab and use the simulation to develop hypotheses about why group size should matter when punishment is allowed. We test these hypotheses experimentally and examine whether the effect of group size is purely due to the number of group members or if information about other group members is what is important. We find that large groups contribute at rates no lower than small groups because punishment does not fall appreciably in large groups. However, hindrances to monitoring do reduce the provision of the public good.

Subfields: Demography, Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0e3f4a570ab6958ec9777266ade8aedc4335cafe

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Citations in the corpus

Assessing community-based conservation projects: A systematic review and multilevel analysis of attitudinal, behavioral, ecological, and economic outcomes (2013, background): “There is no consensus regarding the relationship between population size and successful community resource management with theory and empirical studies suggesting that there may be a positive linear relationship [67,68], a negative linear relationship [32,69] or an inverted U-shaped relationship [70”
Cooperation in small groups: the effect of group size (2013, positive): “In Carpenter (2007) groups are randomly reformed at the beginning of each new period (strangers matching protocol). Group size effects are studied by varying the number of players matched in a group. In all studies group sizes are varied in a between-subject design, except in Goeree et al. (2002) wh”
Do Social Preferences Increase Productivity? Field Experimental Evidence from Fishermen in Toyama Bay (2011, positive): “Although the social disapproval protocol has the flavor of the punishment experiments described in Fehr and Gaechter (2000) and Carpenter (2007), for example, it is substantially different because punishment carries no material penalty (à la Masclet et al. 2003) and it is not directed at…”
Enforcement of contribution norms in public good games with heterogeneous populations (2009, neutral): “…by those who derive a higher beneﬁt from the public good, whereas those who enjoy the public good less may think that such a rule is normatively unappealing. regarding the public good and ﬁnd that punishment does not increase contributions as much in heterogeneous as in homogeneous groups.”
Autocurricula and the Emergence of Innovation from Social Interaction: A Manifesto for Multi-Agent Intelligence Research (2019, background): “However, it does provide more opportunity for norm violators to free-ride on the contributions of others (Carpenter, 2007).”
Institution formation in public goods games (2006, background): “The organization is costly and only players who are members of the organization can be punished.”
Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: a selective survey of the literature (2011, methodology): “In Carpenter (2007b) participants play in groups of four using a “strangers” protocol for fifteen rounds.”
A comparative statics analysis of punishment in public-good experiments (2008, neutral): “Nevertheless, the results from Anderson and Putterman (2006) and Carpenter (2007) are consistent with our ndings.”