The enemy of my enemy

Alessandro Stringhi, Sara Gil-Gallen, Andrea Albertazzi

This paper studies how competition between groups affects cooperation. In the control condition, pairs of subjects play an indefinitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemma game without external competition. In the treatment, two pairs compete against each other. No monetary rewards are tied to winning, isolating the bare impact of competition. In the treatment, cooperation increases by 16 percentage points. Strategies estimation shows a shift from selfish strategies (Always Defect) to cooperative ones (Grim Trigger). A theoretical model provides a rationale for the experimental results.

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Year of publication:	January 2025
Authors:	Stringhi, Alessandro ; Gil-Gallen, Sara ; Albertazzi, Andrea
Publisher:	Milano, Italia : Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei
Subject:	Competition \| Cooperation \| Prisoner’s Dilemma \| Repeated game \| Gefangenendilemma \| Prisoner's dilemma \| Kooperation \| Wiederholte Spiele \| Repeated games \| Spieltheorie \| Game theory \| Kooperatives Spiel \| Cooperative game \| Wettbewerb