Democratic decisions establish stable authorities that overcome the paradox of second-order punishment
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Significance: Humans usually punish free riders but refuse to sanction those who cooperate but do not punish. However, such second-order punishment is essential to maintain cooperation. The central authorities established in modern societies punish both free riders and tax evaders. This is a paradox: would individuals who do not engage in second-order punishment strive for an authority that does? We address this puzzle with a mathematical model and an economic experiment. When individuals can choose between authorities by migrating between different communities, we find a costly bias against second-order punishment. When subjects use a majority vote instead, they vote for an authority with second-order punishment. These findings also suggest that other pressing social dilemmas could be solved by democratic voting.
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Peer punishment is ineffective when the population is dominated by second-order free-riders.
“As for peer punishment, it is ineffective when the population is dominated by second-order free-riders, i.e., individuals who contribute to the public goods but do not punish free-riders40,41.”
From Cooperation without punishment (2023) · cites this paper as [40]
The Discussion says second-order punishment is fundamental to the stability of decentralized peer punishment and that people are reluctant to sanction nonpunishers. This supports the claimed problem with second-order free-riders, but the paper does not specifically establish that peer punishment is ineffective when they dominate a population. (LLM, conf=0.82)
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- Authors
- Hilbe, C., Traulsen, A., Röhl, T., & Milinski, M.
- Affiliations
- Evolutionary Theory Group and
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology (DE)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2013-12-23
- Volume
- 111
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 752-756
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3896163
- OpenAlex
- W2168194430
- Cited by
- 90
- References
- 59
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 23.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Game Theory and Voting Systems
- Keywords
- free-riding, public goods game, democratic institutions, majority voting, commitment, tax evasion, cooperation, migration, institutional choice
- MeSH terms
- Computer Simulation, Cooperative Behavior, Democracy, Germany, Humans, Models, Theoretical, Social Control Policies, Politics, Punishment
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