Anarchy, Groups, and Conflict: An Experiment on the Emergence of Protective Associations
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-2012
Abstract
In this article, we investigate the implications of the philosophical considerations presented in Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia, by examining group formation in a laboratory setting where subjects engage in both cooperative and conflictual interactions. We endow participants with a commodity used to generate earnings, plunder others, or protect against plunder. In our primary treatment, we allow participants to form groups to pool their resources. We conduct a baseline comparison treatment that does not allow group formation. We find that allowing subjects to organize themselves into groups does not lead to more cooperation and may in fact exacerbate tendencies towards conflict.
Recommended Citation
Smith, A., Skarbek, D. and Wilson, B. "Anarchy, Groups, and Conflict: An experiment on the emergence of protective associations." Social Choice and Welfare, 38(2), February, 2012.
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
Springer
Comments
This article was originally published in Social Choice and Welfare, volume 38, issue 2, in 2012.
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