nep-cis 2006-08-12 papers

on Confederation of Independent States

Issue of 2006‒08‒12
one paper chosen by
Anna Y. Borodina
Perm State University

The Limits of Self-Governance in the Presence of Spite: Experimental Evidence from Urban and Rural Russia By Simon Gächter; Benedikt Herrmann

The Limits of Self-Governance in the Presence of Spite: Experimental Evidence from Urban and Rural Russia

By:	Simon Gächter (University of Nottingham, CESifo and IZA Bonn); Benedikt Herrmann (University of Nottingham)
Abstract:	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.
Keywords:	social norms, free riding, punishment, spite, experiments
JEL:	H41 C91 D23 C72
Date:	2006–07
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2236&r=cis

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