{"title":"Coordinated and uncoordinated punishment in a team investment game","authors":"Vicente Calabuig, Natalia Jiménez-Jiménez, Gonzalo Olcina, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara","doi":"10.1007/s11238-024-09977-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Coordinated punishment occurs when punishment requires a specific number of punishers to be effective, otherwise, no damage will be inflicted on the target. While societies often rely on this punishment device, its benefits are unclear compared to uncoordinated punishment, where punishment decisions are substitutes. In this paper, we compare the efficacy of coordinated and uncoordinated punishment in a team investment game with two investors and one allocator. Our findings indicate that coordinated punishment results in higher levels of cooperation and reciprocity, as measured by the levels of joint investment and the return by allocators. Importantly, this does not translate into higher payoffs: investors use punishment more frequently when this is coordinated, which destroys the efficiency gains generated by the highest investment. In fact, our results suggest that the highest level of efficiency would be achieved if investors were not allowed to punish.</p>","PeriodicalId":47535,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Decision","volume":"142 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Theory and Decision","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11238-024-09977-9","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Coordinated punishment occurs when punishment requires a specific number of punishers to be effective, otherwise, no damage will be inflicted on the target. While societies often rely on this punishment device, its benefits are unclear compared to uncoordinated punishment, where punishment decisions are substitutes. In this paper, we compare the efficacy of coordinated and uncoordinated punishment in a team investment game with two investors and one allocator. Our findings indicate that coordinated punishment results in higher levels of cooperation and reciprocity, as measured by the levels of joint investment and the return by allocators. Importantly, this does not translate into higher payoffs: investors use punishment more frequently when this is coordinated, which destroys the efficiency gains generated by the highest investment. In fact, our results suggest that the highest level of efficiency would be achieved if investors were not allowed to punish.
期刊介绍:
The field of decision has been investigated from many sides. However, research programs relevant to decision making in psychology, management science, economics, the theory of games, statistics, operations research, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and analytical philosophy have remained separate. Theory and Decision is devoted to all aspects of decision making belonging to such programs, but addresses also possible cross-fertilizations between these disciplines which would represent effective advances in knowledge. The purpose of the journal is to let the engineering of choice gradually emerge both for individual and for collective decision making. Formalized treatments will be favoured, to the extent that they provide new insights into the issues raised and an appropriate modeling of the situation considered. Due to its growing importance, expermentation in decision making as well as its links to the cognitive sciences will be granted special attention by Theory and Decision.
Of particular interest are: Preference and belief modeling,
Experimental decision making under risk or under uncertainty,
Decision analysis, multicriteria decision modeling,
Game theory, negotiation theory, collective decision making, social choice,
Rationality, cognitive processes and interactive decision making,
Methodology of the decision sciences. Applications to various problems in management and organization science, economics and finance, computer-supported decision schemes, will be welcome as long as they bear on sufficiently general cases. Analysis of actual decision making processes are also relevant topics for the journal, whether pertaining to individual, collective or negotiatory approaches; to private decisions or public policies; to operations or to strategic choices.
Officially cited as: Theory Decis