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Carrot or stick?

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Rewards and punishments can cajole people into cooperating, but they are costly to implement. A theoretical study finds that, when participation in group activities is optional, punishing uncooperative behaviour is the cheaper method.

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Figure 1: Punishment comes cheap.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Simon Gächter is in the Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.,

    Simon Gächter

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  1. Simon Gächter
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Correspondence to Simon Gächter.

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Gächter, S. Carrot or stick?. Nature 483, 39–40 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/483039a

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