Interaction between formal punishment institution and informal centralized punishment institution
摘要
Human beings often combat the free-riding tendency by establishing punishment institutions in social dilemmas. This paper investigates the interaction between formal and informal punishment institutions and explores how their combination affects cooperation. The experiment incorporates the Formal Punishment Treatment (FT), Informal Punishment Treatment (IPT), and their combination (F&IPT) to analyze their impact on contributions to public goods. The results show that the combination of formal and informal punishment (F&IPT) leads to significantly higher contributions compared to both the formal punishment institution (FT) and the informal punishment institution (IPT) alone, demonstrating a complementary relationship between the two. This study highlights the complementary relationship between formal and informal punishment mechanisms in sustaining higher levels of cooperation in public goods provision.