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Collective Incentives and Cooperation in Teams with Imperfect Monitoring

Mengel, Friederike LU ; Mohlin, Erik LU and Weidenholzer, Simon (2018) In Working Papers
Abstract
We experimentally explore the role of collective incentives in sustaining cooperation in finitely repeated public goods games with imperfect monitoring. In our experiment players only observe noisy signals about individual contributions, while total output is perfectly observed. We consider sanctioning mechanisms that allow agents to commit to collective punishment in case total output fall short of a target. We find that cooperation is higher in the case of collective punishment compared to both the case of no punishment and the case of standard peer-to-peer punishment which conditions on the noisy signals. Further experiments indicate that both the commitment possibility and the collective nature of punishment matter for the positive... (More)
We experimentally explore the role of collective incentives in sustaining cooperation in finitely repeated public goods games with imperfect monitoring. In our experiment players only observe noisy signals about individual contributions, while total output is perfectly observed. We consider sanctioning mechanisms that allow agents to commit to collective punishment in case total output fall short of a target. We find that cooperation is higher in the case of collective punishment compared to both the case of no punishment and the case of standard peer-to-peer punishment which conditions on the noisy signals. Further experiments indicate that both the commitment possibility and the collective nature of punishment matter for the positive effect of collective incentives on cooperation. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Public goods game, Team production, Punishment, Collective sanctions, Imperfect monitoring, C72, D02, D23, D90
in
Working Papers
issue
2018:11
pages
33 pages
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
e543400e-8296-4916-9942-0fe9d760cad0
alternative location
https://swopec.hhs.se/lunewp/abs/lunewp2018_011.htm
date added to LUP
2018-05-29 16:18:10
date last changed
2018-11-21 21:40:05
@misc{e543400e-8296-4916-9942-0fe9d760cad0,
  abstract     = {{We experimentally explore the role of collective incentives in sustaining cooperation in finitely repeated public goods games with imperfect monitoring. In our experiment players only observe noisy signals about individual contributions, while total output is perfectly observed. We consider sanctioning mechanisms that allow agents to commit to collective punishment in case total output fall short of a target. We find that cooperation is higher in the case of collective punishment compared to both the case of no punishment and the case of standard peer-to-peer punishment which conditions on the noisy signals. Further experiments indicate that both the commitment possibility and the collective nature of punishment matter for the positive effect of collective incentives on cooperation.}},
  author       = {{Mengel, Friederike and Mohlin, Erik and Weidenholzer, Simon}},
  keywords     = {{Public goods game; Team production; Punishment; Collective sanctions; Imperfect monitoring; C72; D02; D23; D90}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2018:11}},
  series       = {{Working Papers}},
  title        = {{Collective Incentives and Cooperation in Teams with Imperfect Monitoring}},
  url          = {{https://swopec.hhs.se/lunewp/abs/lunewp2018_011.htm}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}