Sanctioning by Institution, Skepticism of Punisher and the Evolution of Cooperation

Abstract

This article aims to clarify the case and the mechanism where sanction or punishment by institution can deliver the evolution of cooperation. Compared to peer sanctioning, institutional sanctioning may be sensitive to players' attitude toward players who do not pre-commit punishment. Departed from former studies based on the punisher who always acts cooperatively, we assume that the punishing player is skeptical in that she cooperates in proportion to how many same types join in her team. Relying on stochastic adaptive dynamics, we show that institutional sanctioning coupled with skeptical punisher can make cooperation evolve for the case where peer sanctioning may not.