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Peer punishment in teams: expressive or instrumental choice?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Marco Casari  and
Luigi Luini
Marco Casari*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Università di Bologna, Piazza Scaravilli 2, 40126 Bologna, Italy
Luigi Luini*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Economia Politica, Università di Siena, Piazza San Francesco D'Assisi 5, 53100, Siena, Italy
*
marco.casari@unibo.it
luini@unisi.it
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Abstract

A key question about human societies is how social norms of cooperation are enforced. Subjects who violate norms are often targeted by their peers for punishment. In an experiment with small teams we examine whether subjects treat punishment itself as a second-order public good. Results do not support this view and rather suggest a hard-wired taste for punishment; subjects are engaged in a cooperative task but ignore the public good characteristics of punishment.

Keywords

ExperimentsSanctionsPublic goodsStrategic behaviorSocial norms

JEL classification

D23: Organizational Behavior • Transaction Costs • Property Rights C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 2012 , pp. 241 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-011-9292-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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