Understanding the proximate and ultimate sources of human cooperation is a fundamental issue in all behavioural sciences. In this article we review the experimental evidence on how people solve cooperation problems. Existing studies show without doubt that direct and indirect reciprocity are...

Does the cultural background influence the success with which genetically unrelated individuals cooperate in social dilemma situations? In this paper we provide an answer by analyzing the data of Herrmann et al. (Science 2008, pp. 1362-1367), who study cooperation and punishment in sixteen...

We report evidence from public goods experiments with and without punishment which we onducted in Russia with 566 urban and rural participants of young and mature age cohorts. Russia is interesting for studying voluntary cooperation because of its long history of collectivism, and a huge...

We report evidence from public goods experiments with and without punishment which we conducted in Russia with 566 urban and rural participants of young and mature age cohorts. Russia is interesting for studying voluntary cooperation because of its long history of collectivism, and a huge...

Using an experimental approach, this paper examines how scarcity of natural resources affects people's readiness to cooperate and to engage in antisocial behaviour. The experiments were carried out with pastoralists from southern Namibia whose livelihoods are highly dependent on grazing...

Using an experimental approach, this paper examines how scarcity of natural resources affects people's readiness to cooperate or engage in antisocial behavior. The experiments were carried out with pastoralists from southern Namibia, whose livelihoods greatly depend on grazing availability on...

We experimentally investigate the nature of cooperation in various repeated games, with subjects from Romania and USA. We find stark cross-country differences in the propensity to sustain multilateral cooperation through bilateral rewards and punishments. U.S. groups perform well because...

While numerous experiments demonstrate how pro-sociality can influence economic decision-making, evidence on explicitly anti-social economic behavior has thus far been limited. In this paper we investigate the importance of spite in experimental rent-seeking contests. Although, as we show,...