This paper reports the results of an experiment that investigates the relationships between inequality and punishment …. In particular, we analyze how inter-personal comparisons affect altruistic punishment behavior. In addition, we examine … how punishment affects inequality over time. We compare two treatments of a two-stage public good game, one in which …

opportunity to punish others on the level contributions in the Voluntary Contributions Mechanism. The punishment is costly for … both the players distributing and those receiving the punishment. Like Fehr and Gaechter, we find that agents often engage … in non-credible costly punishment behavior in order to reduce earnings of others who contribute low amounts to the public …

punishment, so that they increase overall welfare? We report an experiment in which players can issue non-binding threats to … their actual punishment level. We find that threats increase the level of contributions significantly. Efficiency is … punishment leads to lower threats, cooperation and welfare, restoring them to levels equal to or below the levels attained in the …

bear a higher burden of punishment costs than non-police subjects. When the norm enforcement institution is endogenous, all …