Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 279, Issue 1743, Pages 3716-3721Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.0937
Keywords
evolution of cooperation; peer punishment; pool punishment
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Punishment can stabilize costly cooperation and ensure the success of a common project that is threatened by free-riders. Punishment mechanisms can be classified into pool punishment, where the punishment act is carried out by a paid third party, (e. g. a police system or a sheriff), and peer punishment, where the punishment act is carried out by peers. Which punishment mechanism is preferred when both are concurrently available within a society? In an economic experiment, we show that the majority of subjects choose pool punishment, despite being costly even in the absence of defectors, when second-order free-riders, cooperators that do not punish, are also punished. Pool punishers are mutually enforcing their support for the punishment organization, stably trapping each other. Our experimental results show how organized punishment could have displaced individual punishment in human societies.
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