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On the Design of Peer Punishment Experiments

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Abstract

Some peer punishment technologies may bias experimental results in unwanted ways. A critical parameter to consider in the design is the “fine-to-fee” ratio, which measures the income reduction for the targeted subject relative to the cost for the subject who requested the punishment. We show that a punishment technology commonly used in experiments embeds a variable fine-to-fee ratio and show that it could confound the empirical findings about why, whom, and how much subjects punish.

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Correspondence to Marco Casari.

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JEL Classification: C91, C92

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Casari, M. On the Design of Peer Punishment Experiments. Exp Econ 8, 107–115 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-005-0869-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-005-0869-9

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