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Free keywords:
evolution of cooperation; peer punishment; pool punishment
Abstract:
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 secondorder
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.
