Group Reputation and the Endogenous Group Formation

Endogenous group formation in experimental

Endogenous group formation in experimental contests* Luisa Herbst, Kai A. Konrad, and Florian Morath We study endogenous group formation in tournaments employing experimental threeplayer contests. We find that players in endogenously formed alliances cope better with the moral hazard problem in groups than players who are forced into an alliance. Also, players who are committed to expending eff...

Endogenous Group Formation in Experimental Contests

Endogenous group formation in experimental contests* Luisa Herbst, Kai A. Konrad, and Florian Morath We study endogenous group formation in tournaments employing experimental threeplayer contests. We find that players in endogenously formed alliances cope better with the moral hazard problem in groups than players who are forced into an alliance. Also, players who are committed to expending eff...

Endogenous Group Formation via Unproductive Costs

Sacrifice is widely believed to enhance cooperation in churches, communes, gangs, clans, military units, and many other groups. We find that sacrifice can also work in the lab, apart from special ideologies, identities, or interactions. Our subjects play a modified VCM game-one in which they can voluntarily join groups that provide reduced rates of return on private investment. This leads to bo...

Social Transformation, Group Reputation, and Reputation Matching

Unlike in small communities where one can strategically interact with another according to the latter’s individual reputation, players in complex societies often have to interact with strangers whose individual reputations cannot be easily acquired. They often have to infer their counterparts’ characteristics from the latters’ group reputation to simplify decision making. We provide a game theo...

Reputation, Group Structure and Social Tension