final paper

Question 1

Environment

Answer 1

2 Groups: Control and Token.
Group sizes vary (2, 4, 8, 32)
Consumption Units are exchanged for money

Question 2

Behavior

Answer 2

In control group, cooperation decreased as groups increased in size.

Token group, cooperation didn’t change as groups increased in size

• possibility for monetary trade boosts cooperation only if groups are large enough

Question 3

Institution

Answer 3

Average 27USD payoff
Rules:
- pg. 2
(token)
- producers can do nothing, give help, or sell help.
- consumers can donate token or buy help for a token

Question 4

Follow-Up Questions

Answer 4

How would communication influence behavior? (Negotiation of value of help to larger quantities of tokens?)

How would possibility of reciprocity influence behavior?

Question 5

How does it relate to nudge/sentiments/goldin

Answer 5

Sentiments: moral nature of reciprocity and sympathy influences our decisions in cooperation. BUT it fails to explain the decline in cooperation

Nudge: People aren’t aware that tokens increase their cooperation

Goldin:

Question 6

What is a follow-up experiment to do

Answer 6

Examining reciprocity effect:
- Higher probability to be paired with the same person but in big groups.

Question 7

What confounds did they attempt to control?

Answer 7

Effect on monitoring is constant (unlike field environment)

Payoffs do not increase with presence of tokens (max joint payoffs are the same)

Question 8

Why decreased cooperation as n increases?

Answer 8

Cooperation might rely on direct reciprocation