Team spirit varies from one country to another
10 February 2009
Read by 1691 persons
Tests of behavioral economics are organized in a laboratory and extremely codified. Above, the experimentation laboratory of the University of Rennes-I.
A test shows that sanctions aimed at encouraging cooperation within a group are not always effective in all countries.
The study of economic behaviors using tests organized in a laboratory is a new science. This is called behavioral economics. Based on game theory, it is better known in Northern Europe and in Anglo-Saxon countries than in France, where there are nevertheless good research teams. Last week, the journal Science published a significant study in this discipline, on the theme of cooperation and punishment. A question whose interest goes far beyond the scope of economics.
In a group of people who do not know each other and who participate in a common project, the possibility of sanctioning those who are not cooperative is the best way to obtain the maximum investment in favor of the project. The punishment of "free-riders" (the stick) ultimately proves more effective than any reward system (the carrot) for the public good. In the absence of punishment, indeed, everyone tends to behave selfishly, not putting tokens (fictitious money) in the common pot and preferring to keep their stake. This is what Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter, two Austrian researchers, statistically demonstrated in 2000 using a game of voluntary contribution to the public good.
The study published on Friday by researchers from the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom) and St. Gallen (Switzerland) shows that, in fact, this pattern does not apply to all societies. They tested and compared the behavior of students in sixteen major cities in fourteen different countries, using a game involving a private account and a public account. They observed that, in all cases, punishments are inflicted on "free-riders", but that, in some regions, they are also used against those who have distributed punishments or who have been "too" cooperative.
Instruments of vengeance
Sanctions ultimately turn out to be instruments of vengeance. This is the case for students from Muscat (Oman), Athens (Greece), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Samara and Dnipropetrovsk (Russia), Minsk (Belarus), Istanbul (Turkey) and Seoul (South Korea). "In these countries, institutional solidarity is weaker than in Northern European countries or Anglo-Saxon countries," summarizes Laurent Denant-Boèmont (University of Rennes-I). People have more exclusive relationships with their loved ones.
Conversely, in Boston (United States), Melbourne (Australia), Nottingham (United Kingdom), St. Gallen and Zurich (Switzerland), Chengdu (China), Bonn (Germany) and Copenhagen (Denmark), only punishments in favor of the common good are important. There is very little vengeance and "antisocial punishments". Students do not accept "free-riders" who want to make the trip without paying.
"What you are taught every day at school and in everyday life has a strong impact on behavior towards people you don't know," analyzes Olivier Bochet, from Maastricht University (Netherlands). "So you have to be very careful when you want to create a public good."
"The interest of this type of game is to be able to control the environment and test the mechanisms," points out David Masclet (University of Rennes-I). Between the construction of the mathematical model, the design of the game, the recruitment of students, the analysis of the data and their interpretation, the study published in Science took nearly four years of work.
Posted online on February 10, 2009
lefigaro.fr
A test shows that sanctions aimed at encouraging cooperation within a group are not always effective in all countries.
The study of economic behaviors using tests organized in a laboratory is a new science. This is called behavioral economics. Based on game theory, it is better known in Northern Europe and in Anglo-Saxon countries than in France, where there are nevertheless good research teams. Last week, the journal Science published a significant study in this discipline, on the theme of cooperation and punishment. A question whose interest goes far beyond the scope of economics.
In a group of people who do not know each other and who participate in a common project, the possibility of sanctioning those who are not cooperative is the best way to obtain the maximum investment in favor of the project. The punishment of "free-riders" (the stick) ultimately proves more effective than any reward system (the carrot) for the public good. In the absence of punishment, indeed, everyone tends to behave selfishly, not putting tokens (fictitious money) in the common pot and preferring to keep their stake. This is what Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter, two Austrian researchers, statistically demonstrated in 2000 using a game of voluntary contribution to the public good.
The study published on Friday by researchers from the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom) and St. Gallen (Switzerland) shows that, in fact, this pattern does not apply to all societies. They tested and compared the behavior of students in sixteen major cities in fourteen different countries, using a game involving a private account and a public account. They observed that, in all cases, punishments are inflicted on "free-riders", but that, in some regions, they are also used against those who have distributed punishments or who have been "too" cooperative.
Instruments of vengeance
Sanctions ultimately turn out to be instruments of vengeance. This is the case for students from Muscat (Oman), Athens (Greece), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Samara and Dnipropetrovsk (Russia), Minsk (Belarus), Istanbul (Turkey) and Seoul (South Korea). "In these countries, institutional solidarity is weaker than in Northern European countries or Anglo-Saxon countries," summarizes Laurent Denant-Boèmont (University of Rennes-I). People have more exclusive relationships with their loved ones.
Conversely, in Boston (United States), Melbourne (Australia), Nottingham (United Kingdom), St. Gallen and Zurich (Switzerland), Chengdu (China), Bonn (Germany) and Copenhagen (Denmark), only punishments in favor of the common good are important. There is very little vengeance and "antisocial punishments". Students do not accept "free-riders" who want to make the trip without paying.
"What you are taught every day at school and in everyday life has a strong impact on behavior towards people you don't know," analyzes Olivier Bochet, from Maastricht University (Netherlands). "So you have to be very careful when you want to create a public good."
"The interest of this type of game is to be able to control the environment and test the mechanisms," points out David Masclet (University of Rennes-I). Between the construction of the mathematical model, the design of the game, the recruitment of students, the analysis of the data and their interpretation, the study published in Science took nearly four years of work.
Posted online on February 10, 2009
lefigaro.fr
