Centralized Management and Informal Punishment in Groups:An Experimental Study
Previous experimental studies have shown that centralized management imple-mented by a manager can effectively improve cooperation in social dilemmas.The current study examines whether the presence of informal punishment opportunities,especially the chance to retaliate against the manager,affects centralized management and contributions in a public goods game.In particular,we study two types of managers who have discretionary rights over the redistribution of wealth,non-corruptible and corruptible.A non-corruptible manager redistributes wealth among the other group members,whereas a corruptible man-ager has greater discretionary rights that allow her to embezzle group wealth.The results in-dicate that with a non-corruptible manager,contributions do not decrease significantly in the presence of informal punishment opportunities even though the intensity of centralized man-agement is reduced.With a corruptible manager,contribution levels decrease significantly in the presence of informal punishment opportunities because the manager takes no action to enforce cooperation when facing potential punishment from other members.This appears to be explained by a crowding-out effect of informal punishment on the enforcer's responsibility perceptions.
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