On cooperation and trust in strategic games [Elektronische Ressource] : behavioral evidence from the Middle East and Europe / vorgelegt von: Gari Walkowitz

Gari Walkowitz

Informations

• Publié par: rheinische_friedrich-wilhelms-universitat_bonn
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 8
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ON COOPERATION AND TRUST
IN STRATEGIC GAMES
Behavioral Evidence from the Middle East and Europe
Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors
der Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften
durch die
Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftliche Fakult¨at der
Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universita¨t zu Bonn
vorgelegt von:
GARI WALKOWITZ
aus Berlin
Bonn, 29. Ma¨rz 2010Referent: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Reinhard Selten
Laboratory for Experimental Economics, University of Bonn
Ko-referent: Prof. Dr. Armin Falk
Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Bonn
Dekan: Prof. Dr. Christian Hillgruber
Tag der mu¨ndlichen Pru¨fung: 29. Ma¨rz 2010Contents i
Contents
Introductory comments 1
Chapter I: On the Prevalence of Framing Effects Across Subject Pools 5
I.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
I.2 Experimental framework: Two cooperation games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
I.2.1 Continuous prisoner’s dilemma with positive externality (PDP) . . . . . 8
I.2.2 Continuous prisoner’s dilemma with negative externality (PDN) . . . . . 9
I.2.3 Equivalence of the two games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
I.3 Experimental procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
I.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
I.4.1 General cooperation in different subject pools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
I.4.2 The impact of framing in different subject pools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
I.4.3 Treatment-dependent cooperation across subject pools . . . . . . . . . . 15
I.5 Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
I. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
I. Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter II: The Moderating Effect of Conformism Values on the Relations
between Other Personal Values, Social Norms, Moral Obligation, and In-
dividual Cooperative Behavior 28
II.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
II.2 Study 1: Conformism Values and Social Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
II.2.1 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
II.2.2 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
II.3 Study 2: Conformism Values and Cooperative Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
II.3.1 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
II.3.2 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
II.4 Study 3: Mediation of Moderating Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
II.4.1 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
II.4.2 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
II.5 General Discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
II. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
II. Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Contents ii
Chapter III: Actions and Beliefs in a Trilateral Trust Game Involving
Germans, Israelis, and Palestinians 56
III.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
III.2 Research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
III.3 Experimental Methods and Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
III.3.1 Experimental methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
III.3.2 Experimental procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
III.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
III.4.1 The impact of culture on senders’ trust and responders’ trust beliefs . 65
III.4.2 The impact of culture on reciprocity and senders’ reciprocity beliefs . 70
III.4.3 Return on investment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
III.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
III.6 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
III. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
III. Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
ChapterIV:TrustandDiscriminationintheLaborMarket-AnExperimental
Study with Criminal Offenders Appendix 103
IV.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
IV.2 Ex-offenders and the labor market - related literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
IV.3 An experimental approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
IV.3.1 Why a laboratory experiment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
IV.3.2 Methodological challenges and causal inference . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
IV.3.3 Experimental design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
IV.3.4 Treatment variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
IV.3.5 Experimental procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
IV.3.6 Behavioral prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
IV.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
IV.4.1 Hiring (rank order) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
IV.4.2 Wage payment (transfer behavior) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
IV.4.3 Exerted efforts (reciprocity) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
IV.4.4 Do specific groups of employees face discrimination? . . . . . . . . . . 124
IV.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
IV. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
IV. Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139Introductory comments 1
Introductory comments
This work is about selected issues of cooperation and trust in strategic games. Both some-
what abstract terms represent core mechanisms for decision making processes in uncertain
or risky environments (e.g., political negotiations between conflicting parties, foreign direct
investments, employment considerations). Cooperation literally means “working together”
which can be seen as the root of all modern uses of the term - it denotes activity conducted
between two or more people, in order to reach a common goal. Trust, on the other hand,
is a motivation conditioned on cognitive and contingently emotional processes to take the
risk of vulnerability via the achievement of an investment without explicit means of control
within exchange relationships. Trust can be considered as a specific attitude to cooperate.
Combining the intention to cooperate and the ability to trust and to positively reciprocate
creates cooperation gains for all members of a social system (e.g., Israelis and Palestinians
working together and sharing the same neighborhood) and generates valuable social capital.
1 2As Fukuyama (1995) and Knack and Keefer (1997) point out, higher trust is associ-
ated with stronger economic performance as well as with higher and more equally distributed
incomes.
The present thesis is a result of my research during the last five years at the Laboratory for
Experimental Economics (BonnEconLab) at the University of Bonn and other institutions
worldwide. It is particular because it bunches subjects and methodologies across several bor-
ders: Firstly, I worked together with co-authors located in Finland, Germany, Israel, and the
West Bank. Thereby, we faced some of the (cooperation and coordination) issues - partly
based on cultural differences - we were investigating at the time (e.g., different perceptions
of the same content of information, or disposable time). Secondly, most of the experiments
discussed in the following chapters were separately or simultaneously accomplished abroad.
Hence, my thesis combines cross-cultural as well as actual inter-cultural data. Thirdly, peo-
ple from different disciplines and occupations supporting differing methods and research ap-
proaches contributed to the success of this interdisciplinary work. Certainly, to some extend
I have also crossed my own borders while writing this thesis.
1Fukuyama, F. (1995): “Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity”, The Free Press, New
York.
2Knack, S. and P. Keefer (1997): “Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country
Investigation”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112, 1251-1288.Introductory comments 2
Thefirstchapterisbasedontheideatocreateastraightforwardandsymmetricalcooperation
(trust) game with a continuous strategy space. First data for this study were gathered in
May 2006 when we first visited the Center for the Study of Rationality at Hebrew University
(Jerusalem) and Al Quds University (Abu-Dis). Later, we included additional observations
from the Sichuan University (Chengdu) and the University of Helsinki (Helsinki). The chap-
ter investigates the impac