Cooperation can be induced by an authority with the power to mete out sanctions for free riders, but law enforcement is prone to error. This paper experimentally analyzes preferences for and consequences of errors in formal sanctions against free riders in a public goods game. With type I...

We present results from a repeated public goods experiment where subjects choose by vote one of two sanctioning schemes: peer-to-peer (informal) or centralized (formal). We introduce, in some treatments, a moderate amount of noise (a 10 percent probability that a contribution is reported...

A novel laboratory experiment is used to show that mismatching between task preferences and task assignment undermines worker productivity and leads to free riding in teams. We elicit task preferences from all workers. Workers' endogenous sorting into tasks significantly improves productivity...

We experimentally analyze the effect of endogenous group formation on the type of sanctioning institutions emerging in a society. We allocate subjects to one of two groups. Subjects play a repeated public goods game and vote on the sanctioning system (formal or informal) to be implemented in...