Representation, Peer Pressure and Punishment in a Public Goods Game

In our repeated public goods experiment, randomly chosen representatives make decisions on contributions and punishment for both themselves and their team. Confirming previous findings, punishment prevents the decline to the zero-contribution Nash Equilibrium. With punishment, contributions range from 50 to 80%, compared to approximately 30% without it. We also observe a nuanced interplay between hierarchical decision-making and punishment on public good provision. Compared to self-representation, the positive contribution trend is less pronounced when representatives govern the entire team, especially when non-representatives cannot signal preferences, resulting in contributions plateauing around 50% of the endowment.