Does Bilateralism Foster Co-operation in Europe? An Experimental Approach of Comparative Merits of Bilateralism and Multilateralism

Europe is oscillating between increased integration and permanent risk of dissolution. In this framework, one often debates the role of bilateral relations, with the following question: does bilateralism foster or delay overall co-operation? We address this question in an experimental framework where we study the behaviour of agents who are confronted with a multiplicity of prisoners' dilemma games, either in a "bilateral" or a "multilateral" way. We surprisingly observe that the co-operation "between all" is significantly higher when interactions are bilateral and that the difference between these two institutional contexts is growing in time in favour of bilateralism. Copyright (c) 2009 The Author(s). Journal compilation (c) 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.