Doctoral Dissertation in Economics: Voluntary Separation in Infinitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma Game: An Experiment

经济学博士论文：无限重复囚徒困境博弈中的自愿分离：一个实验

• 批准号: 1624364
• 负责人: Andrew Schotter
• 金额: $ 0.84万
• 依托单位: New York University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-01 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1624364&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Economics; Voluntary; Separation

Many economic and social relationships such as employment contracts, membership of voluntary organizations, international alliances, friendships and marriages feature voluntary separation: each participant can unilaterally and voluntarily exit the relationship. On the other hand, voluntary separation often makes it hard to build trust and long-term cooperation. Voluntary separation does not only change how business or social relationships end, it also governs the nature of relationships from the very beginning. Its effect on the level of cooperation will have a profound implication for economic growth, social cohesion and subjective well-being of individuals.This study experimentally investigates how voluntary separation affects cooperation. Cooperative behavior of subjects will be compared to theoretical predictions. Different social mechanisms will be tested for their effectiveness in inducing cooperation, which could help policy makers or community designers in their choice of regulatory options.In the experiment, subjects will interact repeatedly in a computer laboratory setting under costly and costless separation. The baseline treatment will not be allowing any separation at all. Theoretical studies on this class of strategic interactions yield predictions based on gradual trust building. In the equilibria they find, long-term cooperation is achieved by mutually defecting in the beginning. This is a highly counter-intuitive way of building trust. There is very little empirical/experimental evidence to support it. This study aims to fill the gap in the literature by answering the following questions: Under what circumstances do people cooperate? Does voluntary separation help or hurt cooperation? How do people achieve cooperation? To test the theoretical predictions, subjects' cooperative behavior will be compared across treatments. By comparing separation treatments, we can also find out which social mechanisms effectively facilitate cooperation. Finally, potential teaching/learning patterns and persistently heterogeneous behavior among subjects can shed light on formation of norms and socialization.

许多经济和社会关系，如就业合同、志愿组织成员资格、国际联盟、友谊和婚姻，都以自愿分离为特征：每个参与者都可以单方面自愿退出关系。另一方面，自愿分居往往很难建立信任和长期合作。自愿分离不仅改变了商业或社会关系的结束方式，而且从一开始就控制了关系的性质。它对合作水平的影响将对经济增长、社会凝聚力和个人主观幸福感产生深远的影响。受试者的合作行为将与理论预测进行比较。不同的社会机制将被测试其在诱导合作方面的有效性，这可能有助于政策制定者或社区设计者选择监管选项。在实验中，受试者将在计算机实验室的设置下反复互动，成本高，成本低分离。基线治疗将不允许任何分离。对这类战略互动的理论研究产生了基于逐步建立信任的预测。在他们发现的均衡中，长期合作是通过一开始的相互背叛来实现的。这是一种非常违反直觉的建立信任的方式。本研究旨在通过回答以下问题来填补文献中的差距：在什么情况下人们会合作？自愿的分离对合作是有利还是有害？人们如何实现合作？为了检验理论预测，将在不同治疗中比较受试者的合作行为。通过比较分离处理，我们还可以发现哪些社会机制有效地促进了合作。最后，潜在的教学/学习模式和持续的异质性行为主体之间可以揭示规范和社会化的形成。