Considerable experimental evidence shows that although costly peer-punishment enhances cooperation in repeated public-good games, heavy punishment in early rounds leads to average period payoffs below the non-cooperative equilibrium benchmark. In an environment where past payoffs determine...

We analyze the interplay between cooperation norms and people's punishment behavior in a social-dilemma game with multiple punishment stages. By combining multiple punishment stages with self-contained episodes of interaction, we are able to disentangle the effects of retaliation and...

Carpenter and Matthews (2009) examine the cooperation norms determining people's punishment behavior in a social-dilemma game. Their findings are striking: absolute norms outperform the relative norms commonly regarded as the determinants of punishment. Using multiple punishment stages and...