Social Norms and Community Enforcement
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The present paper extends the theory of self-enforcing agreements in a long-term relationship (the Folk Theorem in repeated games) to the situation where agents change their partners over time. Cooperation is sustained because defection against one agent causes sanction by others, and the paper shows how such a “social norm” is sustained by self-interested agents under various degrees of observability. Two main results are presented. The first one is an example where a community can sustain cooperation even when each agent knows nothing more than his personal experience. The second shows a Folk Theorem that the community can realize any mutually beneficial outcomes when each agent carries a label such as reputation, membership, or licence, which are revised in a systematic way.
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The step from direct to indirect reciprocity corresponds to the step from personal enforcement to community enforcement.
“In this sense, the step from direct to indirect reciprocity corresponds simply to the step from personal enforcement to community enforcement 26-29 .”
From Evolution of indirect reciprocity (2005) · cites this paper as [28]
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Research works printed but not linked: 12
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- GREIF, A. (1989), "Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade", Journal of Economic History, 49, 857-882.
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- Authors
- Kandori, M.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kandori, Michihiro
- Venue
- The Review of Economic Studies
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1992-01
- Volume
- 59
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 63
- ISSN
- 0034-6527 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2056700716
- Cited by
- 1,574
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 33 · 2025: 42 · 2024: 61 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 58 · 2021: 62 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 50 · 2018: 63 · 2017: 60 · 2016: 64 · 2015: 54 · 2014: 79 · 2013: 71 · 2012: 83
- FWCI
- 7.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.dklevine.com
- Locations
- The Review of Economic Studies (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- London School of Economics and Political Science
- Tel Aviv University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Game Theory and Applications
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- social norms, community enforcement, repeated games, folk theorem, cooperation, sanctioning, partner change, observability, reputation, self-enforcing agreements, long-term relationships
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