Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/228380 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
CeDEx Discussion Paper Series No. 2020-15
Publisher: 
The University of Nottingham, Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics (CeDEx), Nottingham
Abstract: 
We examine the effect of payoff variations on cooperation in one-shot prisoner's dilemma games. We focus on three factors: risk, temptation, and efficiency, which we vary as orthogonal treatments. We find that temptation has the largest impact on cooperation. Temptation directly deters cooperation and indirectly harms cooperation by lowering beliefs about the opponent's cooperativeness. Efficiency indirectly affects cooperation through beliefs, but the magnitude of the effect is relatively small compared to temptation. Risk does not have a significant effect on cooperation. Our finding suggests that curbing the level of temptation is the most important way to improve cooperation in social dilemmas.
Subjects: 
prisoner's dilemma
cooperation
temptation
efficiency
risk
JEL: 
A13
C91
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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