The limits of self-governance in the presence of spite
Subtitle: experimental evidence from urban and rural Russia
By: by Simon Gächter,  Benedikt Herrmann
Series: Discussion paper -- no. 2236; Discussion paper (Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit : Online) -- no. 2236
Publisher: IZA
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Bonn, Germany
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Subjects: Public goods; Cooperation; Voluntarism
Description: "We report evidence from public goods experiments with and without punishment which we conducted in Russia with 566 urban and rural participants of young and mature age cohorts. Russia is interesting for studying voluntary cooperation because of its long history of collectivism, and a huge urban-rural gap. In contrast to previous experiments we find no cooperation-enhancing effect of punishment. An important reason is that there is substantial spiteful punishment of high contributors in all four subject pools. Thus, spite undermines the scope for self-governance in the sense of high levels of voluntary cooperation that are sustained by sanctioning free riders only"--Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 8/3/2006.

Includes bibliographical references.

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