Establishing Cooperation between Groups: Ingroup versus Outgroup Punishment

Christian Stoff

No 416, SOI - Working Papers from Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich

Abstract: We analyse interethnic cooperation in an infinitely repeated prisoner�s dilemma when members of one group are unable to target punishment towards individual defectors from the other group. We first show that indiscriminate punishment may sustain cooperation in this setting. Our main result, however, is that the introduction of ingroup punishment in addition to outgroup punishment represents a better sanctioning institution in the sense that cooperative outcomes may persist in situations where outgroup punishment alone fails to induce cooperation. Our findings are consistent with historical evidence on the dynamics of interethnic conflicts.

Keywords: conflicts; interethnic cooperation; ethnicity; intergroup relations; ingroup punishment; outgroup punishment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 C72 O12 O17 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2004-12, Revised 2006-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-gth and nep-soc
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https://www.econ.uzh.ch/apps/workingpapers/wp/wp0416.pdf Revised version, 2006 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:soz:wpaper:0416

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