Punishing and abstaining for public goods

Brandt, H., Hauert, C., & Sigmund, K. (2006). Punishing and abstaining for public goods. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (2) 495-497. 10.1073/pnas.0507229103.

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Abstract

The evolution of cooperation within sizable groups of nonrelated humans offers many challenges for our understanding. Current research has highlighted two factors boosting cooperation in public goods interactions, namely, costly punishment of defectors and the option to abstain from the joint enterprise. A recent modeling approach has suggested that the autarkic option acts as a catalyzer for the ultimate fixation of altruistic punishment. We present an alternative, more microeconomically based model that yields a bistable outcome instead. Evolutionary dynamics can lead either to a Nash equilibrium of punishing and nonpunishing cooperators or to an oscillating state without punishers.

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