Abstract
Second-order free riders, who do not owe punishment cost to first-order free riders in public goods games, lead to low cooperation. Previous studies suggest that for stable cooperation, it is critical to have a pool punishment system with second-order punishment, which gathers resources from group members and punishes second-order free riders as well as first-order free riders. In this study, we focus on the priority of punishment. We hypothesize that the pool punishment system that prioritizes second-order punishment is more likely to achieve cooperation than the system that prioritizes first-order punishment, because the former is more likely to obtain sufficient punishment resources. In the experiments, we compare four pool punishment systems: 1To2 (first-order punishment to second-order punishment), 2To1 (second-order punishment to first-order punishment), 1ONLY (first-order punishment only), and 2ONLY (second-order punishment only). We find that the 2To1 and 2ONLY systems can receive more support than the 1To2 and 1ONLY systems and only the 2To1 system can achieve high cooperation. However, the effect of priority of second-order punishment is observed only when the punishment ratio (PR) is low (Experiment 1), not high (Experiment 2), in which the punishment resource is relatively abundant.
Highlights
Solutions to public goods problems, such as payment for public TV programs and preservation of the natural environment, are one of the most important issues for human society[1,2]
Second-order free riders, who do not owe the cost of punishment, can lead their group to a low cooperation level because a sufficiently high cost is not imposed on first-order free riders to encourage them to refrain from free riding
In the system that prioritizes second-order punishment, we predict that members tend to support the system more and the system can have sufficient resources to punish noncooperators in the public goods games (PGGs), which results in achievement of high cooperation
Summary
Solutions to public goods problems, such as payment for public TV programs and preservation of the natural environment, are one of the most important issues for human society[1,2]. In the experiment of Traulsen et al.[17], in which group size is five, each of first- and second-order free riders are punished by 1 token when at least one member of the group decides to provide 0.5 tokens to the pool punishment system. This leads to a shortage of resources to punish the first-order free riders (noncooperators), and high cooperation is not achieved.
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