Giorgio Coricelli

Sequence Matters: an Experimental Study of the Effects of Experiencing

Positive and Negative Reciprocity

Abstract: This paper presents an experimental analysis of people’s behavior in situations involving both positive and negative reciprocity. The experiment implements sequences of two types of extensive form games called Punishment games and Trust games. The contemporaneous use of these two types of games allows us to define an ideal framework for understanding the basic elements of reciprocal behavior. Results show that the level of trust and punishment are consistent with the view that emotions are involved.

PsycINFO Classification: 2360

J.E.L. Classification: D63, C78, C91

Keywords: Reciprocity, trust, intentions, emotions, experiments.

I am grateful for financial support from the National Science Foundation (grant number SES9818561). I would like to thank James C. Cox, Amnon Rapoport, Luis González Morales, Astrid Hopfensitz and Rupert Sausgruber for their suggestions and comments. I am particularly grateful to Samuel Bowles for his valuable review of the paper.

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