Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/50508 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
KIT Working Paper Series in Economics No. 33
Publisher: 
Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre (ECON), Karlsruhe
Abstract: 
We analyze cooperative behavior of participants who faced a loss. In particular, we extend the Public Good Game by a fixed loss in the beginning of every period. We show that humans change their behavior compared to corresponding studies with gains only. First, in contrast to literature on gains, we observe significant order effects. When participants first play a treatment with punishment, they cooperate less and face higher punishment costs than when first playing a treatment without punishment. The changes are that drastic that punishment does not pay in the first case, while it does in the later. Second, for participants first playing without punishment the contributions in the very first period of play determine the contributions throughout both treatments of the game, yielding higher contributions in the punishment treatment than when playing with gains. Participants punishing first, show no comparable behavior.
Subjects: 
public good
punishment
losses
experiment
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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