Egalitarian solutions to multiperson social dilemmas in populations

Abstract

We consider a class of multiperson social dilemma games played in large populations. In particular, the popular games, such as for example the N-person Prisoner’s Dilemma, the Public Goods, the Tragedy of the Commons, the Volunteer’s Dilemma, and the Assurance game, are included in the proposed frame. The evolution of such populations is assumed to be governed by the replicator equations. We show that the egalitarian distribution of the social welfare generated in the multiperson social dilemma games fosters the long run cooperation in such populations.