Abstract
We use a laboratory version of the intergenerational goods game (IGG) to investigate whether peer punishment facilitates the successful provision of multigenerational public goods. In our experiment, groups (generations) decide sequentially about the provision of a multigenerational public good through the voluntary contributions of their members. Successful provision requires that contributions meet a threshold and exclusively benefits members of future generations. Provision costs are borne only by the current generation. We compare a baseline condition without a punishment institution to a treatment condition where peer punishment can be inflicted exclusively on members of the same generation but not on members of past or future generations. We find that without punishment the likelihood of reaching the contribution threshold is low and that making punishment available within a generation is partially successful in sustaining cooperation in a succession of multiple generations.
Highlights
We use a laboratory version of the intergenerational goods game (IGG) to investigate whether peer punishment facilitates the successful provision of multigenerational public goods
Humans’ unique ability to cooperate with strangers despite defection being in their material self-interest poses a major puzzle in evolutionary biology[1,2,3,4,5], psychology[6], political science[7], anthropology[8], economics[9,10,11] and sociology[12]
To capture central aspects of the incentive structure of a multigenerational cooperation problem, we draw on the intergenerational goods game (IGG) that was first introduced in a seminal online study[33]
Summary
We use a laboratory version of the intergenerational goods game (IGG) to investigate whether peer punishment facilitates the successful provision of multigenerational public goods. In contrast to the commonly studied case of cooperation in single-generation dilemmas, where cooperation occurs within a fixed group of individuals who each bear the consequences of their own decisions and the decisions of their fellow group members[6,9], little is known about humans’ ability to cooperate in so-called multigenerational dilemmas In this class of social dilemmas, cooperation exclusively benefits members of future generations. Our experimental design is informed by an emerging literature, which shows that delaying the benefits from cooperation typically reduces the scope of voluntary cooperation This is true both in single-generation settings where delayed benefits accrue to the same set of decision-makers[22,23,24,25,26] and in mixed-benefit settings, in which the contribution decisions of one group benefit both current and future groups[24,27,28,29,30,31,32]. The successful provision of a multigenerational good rests on two central ingredients: a willingness to provide the public good and successful coordination on a cooperative outcome
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