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

许多经济和社会关系，如雇佣合同、志愿组织的成员资格、国际联盟、友谊和婚姻，都具有自愿分离的特点：每一个参与者都可以单方面和自愿地退出这种关系。另一方面，自愿分离往往使建立信任和长期合作变得困难。自愿分离不仅改变了商业或社会关系的结束方式，而且从一开始就支配着关系的本质。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福祉产生深远的影响。本研究通过实验探讨自愿分离对合作的影响。实验对象的合作行为将与理论预测进行比较。将测试不同的社会机制在诱导合作方面的有效性，这可能有助于决策者或社区设计者选择监管方案。在实验中，受试者将在计算机实验室环境中反复互动，进行昂贵和无成本的分离。基线治疗将不允许任何分离。对这类战略互动的理论研究得出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。很少有经验/实验证据支持它。本研究旨在通过回答以下问题来填补文献的空白：在什么情况下人们会合作？自愿分离对合作是有利还是有害？人们如何实现合作？为了验证理论预测，将比较不同治疗下受试者的合作行为。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/学模式和受试者之间持续的异质行为可以揭示规范和社会化的形成。

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.