Getting Punishment Right: Do Costly Monitoring or Redistributive Punishment Help?

37 Pages Posted: 16 Jan 2008

See all articles by Talbot Page

Talbot Page

Brown University - Department of Economics

Louis Putterman

Brown University - Department of Economics

Bruno Garcia

Brown University

Date Written: January 11, 2008

Abstract

We introduce new treatments of a voluntary contribution mechanism with opportunities to punish, to see how contributions and punishments change when (a) each dollar lost in punishment must be awarded to another team member and/or when (b) obtaining information on individuals' contributions is a costly choice. Conjectures that tying punishments to rewards might reduce punishment of high contributors (perverse punishment) or increase overall punishing are not completely born out, but innovation (a)nonetheless succeeds in making the net punishment of high contributors much less common because they receive enough rewards to offset punishment. A surprise finding is that innovation (b) also decreases the incidence of misdirected punishment, since high contributors do more monitoring than low ones while low contributors do most of the perverse punishing. Both innovations raise both contributions and earnings relative to the familiar VCM-with-punishment treatment.

Keywords: Public goods, collective action, experiment, punishment

JEL Classification: C91, H41, D30

Suggested Citation

Page, Talbot and Putterman, Louis G. and Garcia, Bruno, Getting Punishment Right: Do Costly Monitoring or Redistributive Punishment Help? (January 11, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1084064 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1084064

Talbot Page (Contact Author)

Brown University - Department of Economics ( email )

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Louis G. Putterman

Brown University - Department of Economics ( email )

Box B
Providence, RI 02912
United States
401-863-3837 (Phone)
401-863-1970 (Fax)

Bruno Garcia

Brown University ( email )

Box 1860
Providence, RI 02912
United States