Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
基于规范的承诺执行
Norm-based enforcement of promises
摘要
Considerable evidence suggests that people are internally motivated to keep their promises. But it is unclear whether such internal motivations create a meaningful level of commitment in economically relevant situations where promisors have strong self-interested reasons to break their promises. Self-interested incentives to break promises compete with—and so may overcome—the moral motivations of those who are internally motivated to keep them. We experimentally investigate the willingness of third parties to altruistically punish promise breaking. Participants observe a transaction between a potential promisor and promisee and can incur personal costs to punish the promisor for uncooperative actions. Our results suggest that the same moral reasons that motivate promisors to keep their promises make third-party observers more likely to punish promise breaking. This suggests that the same underlying promissory norms drive both (i) promise-keeping behavior in the absence of second- and third-party enforcement mechanisms and (ii) non-legal enforcement mechanisms that arise when third parties can punish potential promisors in a decentralized fashion. This makes it more likely that promissory norms support cooperative behavior
中文摘要
大量证据表明，人们内心有遵守承诺的动机。但在承诺方有强烈自利动机违背承诺的经济相关情境中，这种内在动机能否形成有意义的承诺约束尚不明确。违背承诺的自利激励与内在道德动机相互竞争——甚至可能压倒后者。我们通过实验研究第三方利他性惩罚违背承诺行为的意愿。参与者观察潜在承诺方与受诺方之间的交易，并可通过承担个人成本来惩罚承诺方的不合作行为。研究结果表明，促使承诺方信守承诺的道德理由同样会使第三方观察者更倾向于惩罚违背承诺行为。这意味着相同的承诺规范同时驱动着：（i）在缺乏第二方与第三方执行机制时的信守承诺行为；（ii）当第三方能够以分散化方式惩罚潜在承诺方时产生的非法律执行机制。这使得承诺规范更有可能支持合作行为。