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On the (in)effectiveness of rewards in sustaining cooperation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Jana Vyrastekova  and
Daan van Soest
Jana Vyrastekova*
Affiliation:
Nijmegen University, Department of Economics, Postbus 9108, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Daan van Soest
Affiliation:
Tilburg University, Department of Economics and Center, Tilburg, The Netherlands
*
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

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We study the effectiveness of costly rewards in mitigating excess extraction in a standard Common Pool Resource (CPR) game experiment. We implement two treatments. In the first, rewards are a pure transfer from one player to the other. In the second, the benefits of receiving a reward are higher than the cost of providing it. Referring to the latter as “net positive” rewards, we observe that these are used more frequently than transfer rewards, and that, unlike transfer rewards, they are effective in sustaining cooperation in the CPR game.

Keywords

Peer enforcementRewardsCommon pool resourceEconomic experiment

JEL classification

D74: Conflict • Conflict Resolution • Alliances • Revolutions C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior C72: Noncooperative Games
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 53 - 65
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NC
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Economic Science Association

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