Experimental economics summary paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

Experimental economics summary paper - Essay Example These aspects tend to be the deciding factors as to when and why humans cooperate or they don’t. The author has used the single trial public goods and the multiple trail experiments to analyse human behaviour and how that affects the economy to a certain extent. In case of the former, it was found that the players could be segregated in two categories- 1: strong free riders, who did not want to contribute anything to the economy 2: weak free riders, who may or may not contribute towards public good and just want to enjoy the benefits (Dawes & Thaler, 1988) In case of the latter, it was found that more the subjects were put through repetitive experiments, the lesser cooperative they grew and even lesser they contributed towards public good. However, both cannot be considered as precise predictions or concrete results to any research. The other theory that has been highlighted by the author is that of reciprocal altruism being a major factor in deciding the contribution level. I t has been observed through experiments that humans tend to cooperate more when there is expectation that the same will be reciprocated. However, this theory has its own drawbacks.