Cooperation through indirect reciprocity: The impact of higher-order history

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gong, Binglin; Yang, Chun-Lei
• 署名单位: East China Normal University; Nanjing Audit University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2019.09.001
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 316-341
• 关键词: Prisoners' dilemma experiment; indirect reciprocity; Higher-order information; Image score; Standing; Judging; COOPERATION

摘要

Amid rapidly growing globalization and digitalization, trades often occur in one-time encounters, where cooperation depends on indirect reciprocity. This study investigates how people use higher-order information to aid in cooperation decisions. A random matching prisoners' dilemma experiment with optional history information up to the second order is conducted. With a novel continuous extension, we show that reputation scores standing and judging significantly affect cooperation decisions. Majority of the subjects respond to higher-order scores individually, and incorporating individual heterogeneity significantly improves the overall fit in aggregate regressions. A modified pooled mixture model classifies 31.7% of the subjects' behaviors into higher-order types. Subjects learn to use the judging score through their experiences. The reputation effect is stronger when subjects have first played the no-information baseline game, where reputation scores are more effective in a complementary way. We also find that cooperation improvement is significantly lower in the treatment with first-order information only. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.