Enforcing social norms: Trust-building and community enforcement

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Deb, Joyee; Gonzalez-Diaz, Julio
• 署名单位: Yale University; Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
• 刊物名称: THEORETICAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1933-6837
• DOI: 10.3982/TE2404
• 发表日期: 2019-11-01
• 页码: 1387-1433
• 关键词: Community enforcement; contagion; anonymous random matching; repeated games

摘要

We study impersonal exchange and ask how agents can behave honestly in anonymous transactions without contracts. We analyze repeated anonymous random matching games, where agents observe only their own transactions. Little is known about cooperation in this setting beyond the prisoner's dilemma. We show that cooperation can be sustained quite generally, using community enforcement and trust-building. The latter refers to an initial phase in which one community builds trust by not deviating despite a short-run incentive to cheat; the other community reciprocates trust by not punishing deviations during this phase. Trust-building is followed by cooperative play, sustained through community enforcement.