Sasaki Tatsuya, Uchida Satoshi, Chen Xiaojie
Faculty of Mathematics, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Research Center, RINRI Institute, 101-8385 Tokyo, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2015 Mar 10;5:8917. doi: 10.1038/srep08917.
Punishment is a popular tool when governing commons in situations where free riders would otherwise take over. It is well known that sanctioning systems, such as the police and courts, are costly and thus can suffer from those who free ride on other's efforts to maintain the sanctioning systems (second-order free riders). Previous game-theory studies showed that if populations are very large, pool punishment rarely emerges in public good games, even when participation is optional, because of second-order free riders. Here we show that a matching fund for rewarding cooperation leads to the emergence of pool punishment, despite the presence of second-order free riders. We demonstrate that reward funds can pave the way for a transition from a population of free riders to a population of pool punishers. A key factor in promoting the transition is also to reward those who contribute to pool punishment, yet not abstaining from participation. Reward funds eventually vanish in raising pool punishment, which is sustainable by punishing the second-order free riders. This suggests that considering the interdependence of reward and punishment may help to better understand the origins and transitions of social norms and institutions.
在公共资源治理中,当存在搭便车者可能占据主导的情况时,惩罚是一种常用手段。众所周知,诸如警察和法院等制裁系统成本高昂,因此可能会受到那些搭他人维护制裁系统努力之便的人(二阶搭便车者)的影响。以往的博弈论研究表明,如果群体规模非常大,即使参与是可选的,在公共物品博弈中集体惩罚也很少出现,原因在于二阶搭便车者的存在。在此我们表明,用于奖励合作的匹配资金会导致集体惩罚的出现,尽管存在二阶搭便车者。我们证明奖励资金能够为从搭便车者群体向集体惩罚者群体的转变铺平道路。促进这种转变的一个关键因素还在于奖励那些为集体惩罚做出贡献但不放弃参与的人。奖励资金最终会在提高集体惩罚的过程中消失,而集体惩罚通过惩罚二阶搭便车者得以维持。这表明考虑奖励与惩罚的相互依存关系可能有助于更好地理解社会规范和制度的起源与转变。