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Centrality and cooperation in networks

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Abstract

We investigate the effects of centrality on cooperation in groups. Players with centrality keep a group together by having a pivotal position in a network. In some of our experimental treatments, players can vote to exclude others and prevent them from further participation in the group. We find that, in the presence of exclusion, central players contribute significantly less than others, and that this is tolerated by those others. Because of this tolerance, groups with centrality manage to maintain high levels of cooperation.

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Notes

  1. It is important to note that exclusion is not the only mechanism that might affect the structure of a network. Many networks, for example, form endogenously with members joining and leaving at their own discretion. Endogenous group formation has been shown to positively affect contributions in experimental public goods environments (e.g., Ehrhart and Keser 1999; Coricelli et al. 2004; Page et al. 2005; Gunnthorsdottir et al. 2007; Ahn et al. 2008). The changes in network structure that arise from this endogeneity, however, will typically not affect players’ centrality; the networks in such experiments are designed to be complete, with every pair of members being directly linked. In contrast, our experimental networks either have one central player or have none. This provides control over the centrality and allows for clean inferences on the effects of centrality on contributions.

  2. Several other papers also study heterogeneity in VCM games but have no baseline with homogenous players. Examples include Buckley and Croson (2006), Noussair and Tan (2011) and Dekel et al. (2017).

  3. We also conducted an additional set of treatments where the central player decides on the allocation of the surplus created in the VCM games. For more details, see van Leeuwen et al. (2015).

  4. We allow players the option to vote to exclude themselves as well. This was observed in only 6 out of 3203 instances of voting.

  5. We discuss here the situation after the first exclusion. This is presented in Fig. 1. The cases for subsequent exclusions follow straightforwardly.

  6. Summaries of the experimental instructions are provided in Appendix A in ESM. Full instructions and the test questions are provided in Appendix D in ESM.

  7. In some settings, costless voting could lead to repeated game equilibria with positive contributions (Hirshleifer and Rasmusen 1989). However, in our study, excluded players still earn their endowment (which equals the Nash stage-game payoff). For this reason, there exists no subgame perfect equilibrium with positive contributions if all agents are self-interested.

  8. In Table C.2 in Appendix C in ESM, we also report p values based on Mann–Whitney and Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests.

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Acknowledgements

For useful comments and suggestions, the authors would like to thank the editor of this journal (Lata Gangadharan) and two anonymous referees, as well as Jordi Brandts, Antonio Cabrales, Jeff Carpenter, Ron Harstad, Eline van der Heijden, Andreas Leibbrandt, Jeroen van de Ven and participants at seminars at University of Massachusetts, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, University of Pennsylvania (SAS), University of East Anglia, ESI Chapman University, University of Málaga, University of Alicante, Jadavpur University, MPI Bonn, Indiana University and Utah State University, and participants at the workshop on Power, Games, and Fairness (Turku 2013), the 2013 ESA North American meetings in Tucson, the 2013 Southern Economic Association meeting, the 2014 Incentives and Behavior Change Workshop at the University of Amsterdam, the 2014 CCC-meeting at the University of Nottingham, the 2015 IMEBESS conference at the IAST, the 2016 BiNoMa Networks Meeting in Norwich and the 2016 Networks Workshop at Queen Mary London. Part of this paper was written while Arthur Schram was visiting the Institute of Economic Analysis (CSIC-IAE) in Barcelona. He thanks the IAE for their hospitality. Financial support from the Research Priority Area Behavioral Economics of the University of Amsterdam, the University of East Anglia, Chapman University and the ANR - Labex IAST is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and CentER, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Boris van Leeuwen

  2. Department of Economics, Walker College of Business, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, USA

    Abhijit Ramalingam

  3. Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

    David Rojo Arjona

  4. Department of Economics, EUI (Florence) and CREED, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Arthur Schram

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  1. Boris van Leeuwen
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  2. Abhijit Ramalingam
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  4. Arthur Schram
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Correspondence to Abhijit Ramalingam.

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van Leeuwen, B., Ramalingam, A., Rojo Arjona, D. et al. Centrality and cooperation in networks. Exp Econ 22, 178–196 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-018-9592-1

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