Different Matching in Public Goods Experiments with Punishment Opportunity

This paper presents results of an experiment with Czech (and Slovak) University students replicating study of Denant-Boèmont, Masclet and Noussair (2007). The experiment focuses on impacts of different punishment opportunities in public goods game. The original experiment was executed in the so-called partner matching (where subjects interacted with the same co-players during the whole session). The author’s aim was to enrich and complete the data with results obtained in stranger matching (where composition of groups changed randomly before each round of a session). The author argues that such extension is of relevance because real human interactions are often the strangers ones, that is, people are obliged to interact with unknown counterparts.The results show that, in the case of stranger interactions, subjects are considerably less willing to cooperate and to engage in punishment of free riders. On the other hand, we can observe the same reactions in response to diverse opportunities to sanction. Both in cases of partners and strangers, the possibility to avenge sanctions reduces the willingness to cooperate while opportunity of sanction enforcement has an inverse effect. This finding endorses the conclusions of original experiment.