Peter Lewisch

Free-Riding on Altruistic Punishment? An Experimental Comparison of Third-Party-Punishment in a Stand-Alone and in an In-Group Environment

While second-party punishment is suitable in small groups, third-party punishment is much more common in large societies, where it is generally recognized as a social norm enforcement device that may guarantee social stability. However, in large societies, the presence of a potential additional third-party punisher who observes the norm violation and decides to intervene becomes more probable. The question arises as to whether third-party punishment would be robust with respect to an enlargement of the pool of potential altruistic punishers, namely the introduction of a second potential punisher. The relevance of this question is evident because, should the case be that the presence of several potential third-party punishers activates free-riding attitudes, third-party punishment may decline or even collapse altogether. In our paper we compare, by means of an economic experiment, punishment by a single third party (the Stand-Alone case) with punishment by third parties (In-Group environment). Shifting punishment choices into this “enlarged environment” allows us to study, in a systematic way, the complex relationship between the punisher’s expectations about her/his peer’s punishment decisions and her/his own punishment choices. Our data suggest that individual punishers are heterogeneous as to their individual punishment characteristics and the presence of a second punisher affects their choices to a certain extent. Consequently, the implementation of voluntary punishment depends on the distribution of types within the population. This result allows both to put into discussion the extreme emphasis devoted to voluntary third-party punishment as the “golden cornerstone” of spontaneous social order and to explain why large developed societies need institutional legal systems as the root of stability.

From Spontaneous Cooperation to Spontaneous Punishment: Distinguishing the Underlying Motives Driving Spontaneous Behavior in First and Second Order Public Goods

Recent findings indicate that individuals use prosocial options as default in social dilemmas and specifically first order public goods. In two studies, we test whether this spontaneous cooperation effect generalizes to second order public goods in the form of punishment behavior in one-shot and iterated public goods, and investigate the underlying motivations. In line with spontaneous cooperation, quick punishment is larger than slow punishment. Negative affect moderates this spontaneous punishment effect in one-shot public goods, in that punishment decisions are more quickly taken by persons that are more upset about the contribution behavior of their group members. Unlike spontaneous cooperation, spontaneous punishment is not driven by dispositional prosociality, but by situational high contributions. A significant three-way interaction in an overall-analysis indicates that the spontaneous punishment effect is mainly driven by above-average, highly upset contributors.

Der Ring des Nibelungen: From a Criminal Law Perspective

The Ring depicts a progression from the ‘divine’ to the ‘human’. On the eve of the Ring (the Rheingold), there are plenty of dwarfs, giants and gods, but no mortals. In the Walkure, gods and humans determine the story line. In Siegfried, Siegfried himself is the protagonist; the dwarf and giant fall by his hand, and the divine spear is broken. In Gotterdammerung the demise of the gods finally takes place, without a single god intervening.

Corporate criminal liability for foreign bribery: perspectives from civil law jurisdictions within the European Union

This paper discusses corporate criminal liability for foreign bribery from the continental European perspective. Despite a lot of policy rhetoric, corporate crime has been and still is an alien concept within the family of continental law jurisdictions. This paper explains the doctrinal misgivings with the idea of corporate crime, the pertinent EU law, and also a recent ruling by the Austrian Constitutional Court upholding the respective Austrian Act. Regarding the use of external agents, the paper argues that any imposition of certain organisational requirements relating to corporate criminal responsibility on to third parties is likely to impede the emergence of efficient legal structures to tackle the issues at stake.

Third-Party Punishment under Judicial Review: An Economic Experiment on the Effects of a Two-Tier Punishment System

Abstract This paper analyses, by means of an economic experiment, the impact of a vertical review on third-party punishment. Whereas the existing empirical literature has studied, under many different aspects, third-party costly punishment as such, it has not addressed the impact of a second “instance” (competent to overrule punishment decisions by the first punisher) on the incidence and amount of such first-instance punishment and the underlying unwanted behaviour (“stealing”). In this paper, we apply experimental methodology that allows us to construct in the lab the counterfactual context for a direct institutional comparison that we cannot find in real life. In particular, we examine first of all whether and how the presence of a second “vertical” punishment layer (i.e. of a “second instance”) affects the amount of punishment imposed in the first instance. Secondly, we check whether the presence of a second level of punishment has a deterrent effect on the underlying (undesired) behaviour. Finally, we examine the level of satisfaction of the victims in all scenarios. In our experiments, we find that the introduction of a second (vertical) tier of punishment increases (i) the level of punishment provided for in the first instance, (ii) deterrence with regard to the underlying behaviour (i.e. a reduction in the number of “thefts” being committed), and also (iii) the level of satisfaction for victims. Real-world applications of this study are plentiful, including the organisation of courts and the appeals process as a whole. Our evidence confirms that the presence of an “instance” (a second tier of legal decision making) is, other things equal, likely to generate beneficial effects.