【主讲】叶茂亮 (中国人民大学)
【主题】Does Gradualism Build Cooperation? Theory and A Finitely Repeated Investment Experiment
【时间】2015年3月3日 (周二) 15：30-17：00
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼801室
【语言】英文
【摘要】This paper examines the effect of gradualism -- increasing the stake of investmentslowly over time rather than requiring a high stake of investment immediately -- incooperation building using a finitely repeated binary trust (investment) experiment. Ourtheoretical predictions build on a behavioral repeated-game model with incompleteinformation about the type (rational or reciprocal) of trustees. The experimental results findthat gradualism helps build high-stake cooperation in the investment relationship: The initialinvestment rate of trustors is the same in the big bang and gradualism treatments, whereas thehigher initial reciprocation rate of the trustees in the gradualism treatment leads to higherrates of subsequent investment and successful mutual cooperation. However, the rates ofinvestment, reciprocation and mutual cooperation for all treatments sharply decrease in theend (“end-of-game” effect).
