Trust
and Reciprocity in Games
(JEL
Classification: C91, C72, D64)
Presiding: Ananish
Chaudhuri, Department of Economics,
Kevin McCabe, University
of Arizona, Mary Rigdon, University
of Arizona and Vernon Smith, University of Arizona, “Sustaining Cooperation in Trust Games”
Discussants: (Listed in the conventional order, i.e. the first
discussant will discuss the first paper and so on)
Ted Bergstrom, Department of Economics, University of
California-Santa Barbara
Rachel Croson,
Sheryl Ball, Department of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and
Ted Bergstrom will discuss the first paper “The Impact of Religiosity on Intra-Group Cooperation
and Trust” by
Rachel Croson will discuss the second paper “When To Trust?
Experiments Disentangling Trusting Behavior in Risky Environments” by
Sheryl Ball
will discuss the third paper “Sustaining Cooperation in Trust Games”
by Kevin McCabe, Mary Rigdon
and
The Impact of Religiosity on
Intra-Group Cooperation and Trust
by
Bradley J. Ruffle (
Richard H. Sosis (
Recent theories independently
developed by economists and anthropologists suggest that religion can promote
intra-group cooperation by increasing trust among adherents. The theories
converge in recognizing that religious rituals often serve as costly signals of
an individual's commitment to a religious group. These theories provide a
possible explanation for the trend recently noted that religious kibbutzim have
been economically more successful than secular kibbutzim. If members of
religious kibbutzim maintain higher levels of intra-group trust than secular ones,
they may have greater success at overcoming the collective action problems that
typically plague communal pursuits. We offer an experimental test of the
hypothesis that religious kibbutzim do indeed exhibit higher levels of trust
than their secular counterparts. To test the impact of religiosity and
privatization on intra-group trust, we develop an experimental game that
captures the unique features of trust and cooperation on Israeli kibbutzim. The
experiments are conducted in pairs using kibbutz members. The methodology
therefore combines an experimental game of the sort familiar to economists with
field methods common in anthropology. This research contributes to the
literature on the determinants of trust and the burgeoning literature that
employs rational choice models to explain variation in religious behavior.
When To Trust? Experiments Disentangling Trusting Behavior in Risky Environments
By
Catherine C. Eckel (Virginia Tech, Economics)
Rick K. Wilson (
We use a series of
laboratory experiments that focus on a two-person sequential, binary trust
game. We focus on financial risk
characteristics embedded in the game, along with independent measures of
financial and behavioral risk associated with individual subjects. We conjecture that people are strategic
actors whose trusting behavior is conditional on the decision context. That
context incorporates the characteristics of a
partner, the potential gains or losses from the trusting
decision and the possibility of recourse to a third party to enforce agreements
involving trust and reciprocity.
Sustaining Cooperation in Trust Games
By
Kevin
McCabe (
Mary Rigdon (
Even though sustaining cooperation has received less attention in
bargaining situations, it has been a primary focus in Prisoner Dilemma and
public goods games. In the Prisoners Dilemma game, always defecting is an
evolutionary stable strategy in the sense that it does not pay to cooperate in
a population where everyone else always defects. Yet a small band of
conditional cooperators (say, tit-for-tat players) can invade a population of
unconditional defectors provided that the cooperators can cluster. This assumes
that the pairing in the interactions is not random. The problem with random
pairing is that the chance of conditional cooperators meeting each other is
low. We want to adapt this idea of population clustering to a simple two-person
trust game. An agent's history of choices gives him a track record. Players can
be typed based on their recent track record as whether or not they are trusting
(for Players 1), and whether or not they are trustworthy (for Players 2). Once
the players are typed, they can then be paired according to those types - trustors with trustworthy types and non-trustors
with untrustworthy types. This sort of matching protocol induces clustering
within the population. The empirical question that we address here is whether
this adaptation of clustering to bargaining environments can sustain
cooperative play analogous to the situation in infinitely repeated Prisoners
Dilemma games.
Gender Differences in Trust and Reciprocity
By
Ananish Chaudhuri (
We use the investment game introduced by Berg, Dickhaut and McCabe (1995) to explore gender differences in trust and reciprocity. In doing so we replicate and extend the results first reported by Croson and Buchan (1999). We find that men exhibit greater levels of trust than women do while women show much higher levels of reciprocity. We find that the context of and inherent risk in a situation impacts upon decisions with women being more generous in situations with less risk and vice versa. Preliminary results show that altruism alone does not explain generous behavior in many bargaining experiments. The presence of “trust” and/or “reciprocity” lead to increased transfers over and above that which is motivated by “altruism”.
Contact Information:
Ananish Chaudhuri (Session Organizer)Department of Economics Phone: (509) 372-7238 Fax: (509) 372-7512 E-mail: achaudh@tricity.wsu.edu |
Eric
Friedman Department of EconomicsPhone: (732) 932-7797 Fax: (732) 932-7416 E-mail:
friedman@econ.rutgers.edu |
Sheryl BallDepartment of Economics VPI&SU Phone:
(540) 231-4349 E-mail: sball@vt.edu |
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Ted
Bergstrom Department of Economics 2127 North Hall
Phone: (805) 893-3744Fax: (805) 893-8830:E-mail: tedb@econ.ucsb.edu |
Kevin McCabe Room 401T E-mail: kmcabe@econlab.arizona.edu |
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Rachel Croson 1030 Steinberg
Hall-Dietrich Hall Fax: (215) 898-1883 E-mail:
crosonr@wharton.upenn.edu |
Mary Rigdon Department of Economics Phone: (520) 621-4747 Fax: (520) 621-8450 E-mail: rigdon@econlab.arizona.edu |
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Department of Economics Phone: (540) 231-7707 E-mail: eckelc@vt.edu |
Department of E-mail: bradley@bgumail.bgu.ac.il |
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Room 116A-ESL E-mail: smith@econlab.arizona.edu |
Rick K. Wilson Department of Political Science, MS 24 Phone: (713) 348-3352 Fax: (713) 348-5273
E-mail: rkw@rice.edu |
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Richard Sosis Department of Anthropology Phone: (860)486-4264 Fax: (860) 486-1719 E-mail: richard.sosis@uconn.edu |
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