Punishment with Uncertain Outcomes in the Prisoner’s Dilemma

Arbeitspapier

This paper experimentally investigates whether risk-averse individuals punish less if the outcome of punishment is uncertain than when it is certain. Our design includes three treatments: Baseline in which the one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game is played; Certain Punishment in which the prisoner’s dilemma game is followed by a punishment stage allowing subjects to decrease the other player’s payoff by 2 Euros; and Uncertain Punishment in which subjects could decrease the other player’s payoff with a 50% probability by 1 Euro and with a 50% probability by 3 Euros. We find that in all cases the risk-averse subjects are equally likely to cooperate in the prisoner’s dilemma and equally likely to punish in the second stage in either of the two punishment treatments.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Discussion Paper Series ; No. 485

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Noncooperative Games ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
• Subject: experiment ; prisoner’s dilemma ; punishment ; risk aversion ; uncertainty ; Gefangenendilemma ; Test ; Risikoaversion

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Duersch, Peter ; Servátka, Maroš
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics
• (where): Heidelberg
• (when): 2009

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/127305
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET