如何通过内生惩罚解决异质性群体的集体行动困境?--博弈模型与案例分析

How to Solve the Dilemma of Collective Actions among Heterogeneous Individuals by Endogenous Punishment? A Theoretical Model and Case Study

合作与协调是人类社会的基本问题。经典理论预测,作为动机复杂且各不相同的行为主体,人与人之间围绕共同的事或物而发生的集体行动往往会落入"个体理性导致集体非理性"的困境。文章基于对中国转型社会一个城中村的长期观察发现,异质性程度大的群体也可以实现自我合作治理。为了弥合现有理论与经验证据的鸿沟,文章基于兰彻斯特法则拓展了现有的个体行为博弈模型和案例分析,找到了解决异质性群体集体行动困境的关键变量-内生的监督和惩罚。相较于政府或市场干预,自我治理组织的制度性建构及其运作,有助于产生符合大部分个体预期的内生监督和惩罚,更有效地维持公共事务自我治理的集体行动。

Cooperation and coordination are the basic problems of human society. The classical theory predicts that,as individuals with complex and different motivations,collective actions on the provision of the commons often fall into the social dilemma,in which individual rationality leads to collective irrationality.Evidence from the long-term observation of an urbanizing village in transitional China suggests that heterogeneous groups can also achieve efficient cooperation and self-governance.We focus upon the problems that,in the case of different groups with heterogeneous individuals,from the formation of groups to collective actions taking place,how can internal monitoring and punishing strategies be selected to sustain collective actions by preventing free riding and other opportunistic behaviors?The main work of this paper is as follows:(1)It expands Lanchester’s Law to describe different behavioral motivations of individuals and investigate the conditions for the occurrence and maintenance of collective cooperation;(2)It introduces endogenous punishment as a credible threat and investigates its impact on the provision of public goods(non-market and non-government),which provides a possible solution to the traditional dilemma of collective actions;(3)Based on the analysis of a real case from Shenzhen,it empirically examines the effect of endogenous punishment on the spontaneous formation of collective actions in the provision of public goods,which enriches the theory and practice of self-governance within the community.This paper makes the following contributions to the literature:First,we employ the general classification and measurement of individual heterogeneity from a laboratory experiment(Fischbacher and Gacheter,2010),which reflects implicit preferences through explicit behavior. According to different motivations,groups are divided into cooperators,free-riders and punishers,and individual types can be revealed by their strategies. Our evolutionary model based on Lanchester’s Law,depicts how individuals in a group take punitive measures against free riding. Then we investigate the influence of endogenous punishment system on collective actions in a long-term repeated game. This paper also provides a new perspective to understand the emergence of cooperation in collective actions and gives a case study as empirical evidence.The results show the conditions for the success of collective actions among individuals with different behavioral motivations,that is,the equilibrium satisfies both of the individual and collective rationality. After initiating collective actions and completing the supply of the system,the maintenance stage of collective actions is equally important. First,in absence of effective supervision and credible punishment,it is difficult for the population who are non-kinship or non-geographical relationship to promote collective actions,and then public goods will be out of provision. Second,in the presence of effective supervision and credible punishment,individuals within the group form the behavioral expectation that "once betrayed,they will be punished and pay the price",and the collective actions of cooperation on the provision of public goods can be sustained.