The DOI matches its Crossref record; 41 of the 43 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Cooperation among strangers with limited information about reputation
Open accessAbstract
The amount of institutional intervention necessary to secure efficiency-enhancing cooperation in markets and organizations, in circumstances where interactions take place among essentially strangers, depends critically on the amount of information informal reputation mechanisms need transmit. Models based on full backward induction find that the necessary information is very large and recursive in nature, implausibly so outside of circumstances where there is a formal institution to process it. Models that relax backward induction find that the information demands may be quite modest. The experiment we present indicates that subjects condition their cooperation on information about their partners' immediate past action, while additional, recursive information about the partners' previous partners' reputation triggers and additional conditional response. Taken together, our results suggest that reputation is a more robust enforcement mechanism for cooperation than standard models suggest; informal stictures that punish cheaters and those who fail to punish cheaters is sufficient to generate substantial cooperation even when the benefits from cooperation are relatively modest.
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“After a couple of rounds the personal experience obtained with the given co-player becomes more decisive 62 .”
From Evolution of indirect reciprocity (2005) · cites this paper as [62]
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“In another experiment 62 , however, those who give often end up with the highest payoff, so that there is a strategic advantage to generosity.”
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Cites
A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation
Fehr, E., & Schmidt, K. M. (1999) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/003355399556151 · Cited by 11,264
ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition
Bolton, G. E., & Ockenfels, A. (2000) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.90.1.166 · Cited by 5,399
Self-citationThe Digitization of Word of Mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms
Dellarocas, C. N. (2003) · Management Science · doi:10.1287/mnsc.49.10.1407.17308 · Cited by 3,583
Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring
Nowak, M. A., & Sigmund, K. (1998) · Nature · doi:10.1038/31225 · Cited by 2,700
Rational cooperation in the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma
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The Folk Theorem in Repeated Games with Discounting or with Incomplete Information
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The Handbook of Experimental Economics
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Giving According to GARP: An Experimental Test of the Consistency of Preferences for Altruism
James Andreoni, A., & Miller, J. H. (2002) · Econometrica · doi:10.1111/1468-0262.00302 · Cited by 1,921
Trust among strangers in internet transactions: Empirical analysis of eBay' s reputation system
Resnick, P., & Zeckhauser, R. (2004) · Advances in applied microeconomics · doi:10.1016/s0278-0984(02)11030-3 · Cited by 1,831
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Items 301–303 of 303
Ren, F., Wang, A., Huo, Y., & Tang, G. (2026) · Journal of Knowledge Management · doi:10.1108/jkm-01-2026-0069
Biases in online reputation systems: a survey of the empirical literature
Sterner, M. (2026) · Electronic Commerce Research · doi:10.1007/s10660-026-10176-7 · Cited by 1
Johnen, C., & Carter, M. R. (2026) · World Development · doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2026.107500
Metadata
- Authors
- Bolton, G. E., Katok, E., & Ockenfels, A.
- Affiliations
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- University of Cologne (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Bolton, Gary E.
- Venue
- Journal of Public Economics
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2005-08
- Volume
- 89
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1457-1468
- ISSN
- 0047-2727 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3125077241
- Cited by
- 305
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 29.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Public Economics (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Universität Bielefeld
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Game Theory and Applications
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Keywords
- reputation, cost of cooperation, subgame perfect equilibrium, institutional intervention, repeated games
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