Free Riders: The Economics of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs

This chapter describes a computational view of the function of ethics in human society and discusses its application to three diverse examples. First, autonomous vehicles are individually embodied intelligent systems that act as members of society. The ethical knowledge needed by such an agent is not how to choose the lesser evil when confronted by a Deadly Dilemma, but how to recognize the upstream decision point that makes it possible to avoid the Deadly Dilemma entirely. Second, disembodied distributed intelligent systems like Google and Facebook provide valuable services while collecting, aggregating, and correlating vast amounts of information about individual users. With inadequate controls, these corporate systems can invade privacy and do substantial damage through either correct or incorrect inferences. Third, acceptance of the legitimacy of the society by its individual members depends on a general perception of fairness. Rage about unfairness can be directed at individual free-riders or at systematic inequality across the society. Ultimately, the promise of a computational approach to ethical knowledge is not simply ethics for computational devices such as robots. It also promises to help people understand the pragmatic value of ethics as a feedback mechanism that helps intelligent creatures, human and nonhuman, live together in thriving societies.

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Bringing tax avoiders to light: moral framing and shaming in a public goods experiment

Behavioural Public Policy ◽

10.1017/bpp.2021.9 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-24

Author(s):

Stefanos A. Tsikas

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Public Good ◽

Social Dilemmas ◽

Tax Avoidance ◽

Social Contagion ◽

Public Goods Game ◽

Free Riders ◽

Social Sanctions ◽

Moral Framing ◽

Public Goods Experiment

Abstract With a linear public goods game played in six different variants, this article studies two channels that might moderate social dilemmas and increase cooperation without using pecuniary incentives: moral framing and shaming. We find that cooperation is increased when noncontributing to a public good is framed as morally debatable and socially harmful tax avoidance, while the mere description of a tax context has no effect. However, without social sanctions in place, cooperation quickly deteriorates due to social contagion. We find ‘shaming’ free-riders by disclosing their misdemeanor to act as a strong social sanction, irrespective of the context in which it is applied. Moralizing tax avoidance significantly reinforces shaming, compared with a simple tax context.

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Punishment Strategies across Societies: Conventional Wisdoms Reconsidered

Games ◽

10.3390/g12030063 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 63

Author(s):

Ramzi Suleiman ◽

Yuval Samid

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Strong Predictor ◽

Social Environments ◽

Public Goods Game ◽

The Public ◽

Free Riders ◽

The World ◽

Emergence Of Cooperation ◽

Using Data ◽

The Cost

Experiments using the public goods game have repeatedly shown that in cooperative social environments, punishment makes cooperation flourish, and withholding punishment makes cooperation collapse. In less cooperative social environments, where antisocial punishment has been detected, punishment was detrimental to cooperation. The success of punishment in enhancing cooperation was explained as deterrence of free riders by cooperative strong reciprocators, who were willing to pay the cost of punishing them, whereas in environments in which punishment diminished cooperation, antisocial punishment was explained as revenge by low cooperators against high cooperators suspected of punishing them in previous rounds. The present paper reconsiders the generality of both explanations. Using data from a public goods experiment with punishment, conducted by the authors on Israeli subjects (Study 1), and from a study published in Science using sixteen participant pools from cities around the world (Study 2), we found that: 1. The effect of punishment on the emergence of cooperation was mainly due to contributors increasing their cooperation, rather than from free riders being deterred. 2. Participants adhered to different contribution and punishment strategies. Some cooperated and did not punish (‘cooperators’); others cooperated and punished free riders (‘strong reciprocators’); a third subgroup punished upward and downward relative to their own contribution (‘norm-keepers’); and a small sub-group punished only cooperators (‘antisocial punishers’). 3. Clear societal differences emerged in the mix of the four participant types, with high-contributing pools characterized by higher ratios of ‘strong reciprocators’, and ‘cooperators’, and low-contributing pools characterized by a higher ratio of ‘norm keepers’. 4. The fraction of ‘strong reciprocators’ out of the total punishers emerged as a strong predictor of the groups’ level of cooperation and success in providing the public goods.

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The Analysis of Willingness to Cooperate for Farmers to Participate in Water Management Based on Game Theory

Applied Mechanics and Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.448-453.1002 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 448-453 ◽

pp. 1002-1010

Author(s):

Cong Liu

Keyword(s):

Water Management ◽

Game Theory ◽

Dynamic Game ◽

Collective Rationality ◽

Game Analysis ◽

Static Game ◽

Free Riders ◽

Evolution Analysis ◽

Prisoners Dilemma ◽

Willingness To Cooperate

To analyze the willingness to cooperate of farmers to participate in water management, we base on game theory and first carry on single static game analysis of willingness to cooperate for farmers to participate in water management, and find that farmers are into a Prisoners Dilemma in a single game, individual rationality comes into conflict with collective rationality, at this time farmers have a tendency to "free riders", so it is difficult to achieve cooperation between the farmers. Then trying to break the prisoners' dilemma, we carry on the farmers repeated dynamic game, the analysis is carried on in the context of incomplete information and limited rationality, we carry on game evolution analysis for willingness to cooperate for farmers to participate in water management. In order to guarantee the rationality of the study, we conduct a survey of willingness to cooperate of farmers to participate in water management in province of Zhejiang and finally confirm that the study is reasonable. And through the analysis of the full text, we conclude six important conclusions.

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Nodes with the highest control power play an important role at the final level of cooperation in directed networks

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-93144-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ali Ebrahimi ◽

Marzieh Yousefi ◽

Farhad Shahbazi ◽

Mohammad Ali Sheikh Beig Goharrizi ◽

Ali Masoudi-Nejad

Keyword(s):

Free Rider ◽

The Other ◽

Public Goods Game ◽

The Public ◽

Free Riders ◽

Control Power ◽

Final Level ◽

Input Signals ◽

Tumoral Cells ◽

Power Play

AbstractControllability of complex networks aims to seek the lowest number of nodes (the driver nodes) that can control all the nodes by receiving the input signals. The concept of control centrality is used to determine the power of each node to control the network. The more a node controls the nodes through connections in the network, the more it has the power to control. Although the cooperative and free-rider strategies and the final level of cooperation in a population are considered and studied in the public goods game. However, it is yet to determine a solution to indicate the effectiveness of each member in changing the strategies of the other members. In a network, the choice of nodes effective in changing the other nodes’ strategies, as free-riders, will lead to lower cooperation and vice versa. This paper uses simulated and real networks to investigate that the nodes with the highest control power are more effective than the hubs, local, and random nodes in changing the strategies of the other nodes and the final level of cooperation. Results indicate that the nodes with the highest control power as free-riders, compared to the other sets being under consideration, can lead to a lower level of cooperation and are, therefore, more effective in changing the strategies of the other nodes. The obtained results can be considered in the treatment of cancer. So that, destroying the tumoral cells with the highest control power should be a priority as these cells have a higher capability to change the strategies of the other cells from cooperators to free-riders (healthy to tumoral).

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Fractional Punishment of Free Riders to Improve Cooperation in Optional Public Good Games

Games ◽

10.3390/g12010017 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 17

Author(s):

Rocio Botta ◽

Gerardo Blanco ◽

Christian E. Schaerer

Keyword(s):

Equilibrium Point ◽

Public Good ◽

Phase Portrait ◽

Game Model ◽

Public Good Game ◽

Group Project ◽

Free Riders ◽

State Evolution ◽

Public Good Games ◽

Full Cooperation

Improving and maintaining cooperation are fundamental issues for any project to be time-persistent, and sanctioning free riders may be the most applied method to achieve it. However, the application of sanctions differs from one group (project or institution) to another. We propose an optional, public good game model where a randomly selected set of the free riders is punished. To this end, we introduce a parameter that establishes the portion of free riders sanctioned with the purpose to control the population state evolution in the game. This parameter modifies the phase portrait of the system, and we show that, when the parameter surpasses a threshold, the full cooperation equilibrium point becomes a stable global attractor. Hence, we demonstrate that the fractional approach improves cooperation while reducing the sanctioning cost.

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