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Funding. Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PGC2018-093506-B-I00, ECO2013-44879-R) and theRegionalGovernment ofAndalusia (PY18-FR-0007, P11-SEJ-8286 and P12-SEJ-1436) is gratefully acknowledged.Antonio Espín acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 754446 and UGR Research and Knowledge Transfer Fund – Athenea3i. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada., Data availability statement. The dataset and code (STATA) are available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10481/76057, Supplementary material. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.32, Humans often ‘altruistically’ punish non-cooperators in one-shot interactions among genetically unrelated individuals. This poses an evolutionary puzzle because altruistic punishment enforces cooperation norms that benefit the whole group but is costly for the punisher. One key explanation is that punishment follows a social-benefits logic: it is eminently normative and group-functional (drawing on cultural group selection theories). In contrast, mismatch-based deterrence theory argues that punishment serves the individual- level function of deterring mistreatment of oneself and one’s allies, hinging upon the evolved human coalitional psychology. We conducted multilateral-cooperation experiments with a sample of Spanish Romani people (Gitanos or Calé) and the non-Gitano majority. The Gitanos represent a unique case study because they rely heavily on close kin-based networks and display a strong ethnic identity. We find that Gitano non-cooperators were not punished by co-ethnics in only-Gitano (ethnically) homogeneous groups but were harshly punished by other Gitanos and by non-Gitanos in ethnically mixed groups. Our findings suggest the existence of culture-specific motives for punishment: Gitanos, especially males, appear to use punishment to protect their ethnic identity, whereas non-Gitanos use punishment to protect a norm of universal cooperation. Only theories that consider normative, group-functional forces underlying punishment behaviour can explain our data., Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PGC2018-093506-B-I00, ECO2013-44879-R), Regional Government ofAndalusia (PY18-FR-0007, P11-SEJ-8286 and P12-SEJ-1436), European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 754446, UGR Research and Knowledge Transfer Fund – Athenea3i, Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada

We study how conflict in a contest game is influenced by rival parties being groups and by group members being able to punish each other. Our main motivation stems from the analysis of socio-political conflict. The relevant theoretical prediction in our setting is that conflict expenditures are independent of group size and independent of whether punishment is available or not. We find, first, that our results contradict the independence of group-size prediction: conflict expenditures of groups are substantially larger than those of individuals, and both are substantially above equilibrium. Towards the end of the experiment material losses in groups are 257% of the predicted level. There is, however, substantial heterogeneity in the investment behaviour of individual group members. Second, allowing group members to punish each other after individual contributions to the contest effort are revealed leads to even larger conflict expenditures. Now material losses are 869% of the equilibrium level and there is much less heterogeneity in individual group members' investments. These results contrast strongly with those from public goods experiments where punishment enhances efficiency and leads to higher material payoffs.

Greece’s currently planned institutional reforms will help to get the country going with limited economic growth. With an economy based primarily on tourism, trade, and agriculture, Greece lacks an established competitive industry and an innovation-friendly environment, resulting in a low export ratio given the small size of the country and its long-time EU-membership. Instead, Greece exports only its nation's talent, with low returns. To become prosperous, the country must better capitalize on its Eurozone membership and add innovative sectors to its economic structure. Given Greece's hidden assets, such as the attractiveness of the country, a small number of strong research centers and an impressive diaspora in research, finance and business, we envision a Greek “Silicon Valley” and propose a ten point policy plan to achieve that goal.

There is evidence that human decision-making is affected by current body energy levels and physiological states. There is less clear evidence linking decision-making to long-term changes in energy, as those associated with obesity. We explore the link between energy, obesity and dishonesty by comparing the behaviour of obese and lean subjects when hungry or sated while playing an anonymous die-under-cup task. Participants performed the task either before or after breakfast. We find that short-term switches in energy have only a mild effect on dishonesty, as only lean females lie less when sated. By contrast, obese subjects lie more than lean subjects in both conditions, and they lie more to avoid the lowest payoff than to get the highest payoff. Our findings suggest that the observed patterns are more likely mediated by factors associated with obesity than by short term energy dynamics, and call for a better integration of the psychological, economic and biological drivers of moral behaviour.

This paper presents a "second generation" theory on the nature of social preferences. Incorporating an inter-temporal ingredient, we generate an outcome-based model which focuses on the conflict between cooperation towards social efficiency and competition for the individual relative standing. We build on the argument that cooperative (competitive) patterns are more likely to arise when the future is perceived as secure and predictable (unsecure and unpredictable). In order to accommodate this argument with recent experimental results showing a relationship between individuals' inter-temporal preferences and social behavior in one-shot games, social efficiency is assumed to trigger long-run satisfaction whereas relative standing is linked to short-run satisfaction. In so doing, we add a dynamic component to social preferences. This feature of the model implies that more patient individuals are more willing to get involved in cooperative affairs while more impatient individuals are more likely to display competitive patterns. Yet, an individual's inter-temporal preferences interact with contextual factors (cues of future (un)predictability) to determine her course of action. The theory is then tested to shed new light on individuals' decisions in different games used in experimental research where a relationship between game play and inter-temporal preferences has been found. We show that our new combination of social and inter-temporal preferences adds well to the explanatory power of economic theory on human decision making.

In the Ultimatum Game, a proposer suggests how to split a sum of money with a responder. If the responder rejects the proposal, both players get nothing. Rejection of unfair offers is regarded as a form of punishment implemented by fair-minded individuals, who are willing to impose the cooperation norm at a personal cost. However, recent research using other experimental frameworks has observed non-negligible levels of antisocial punishment by competitive, spiteful individuals, which can eventually undermine cooperation. Using two large-scale experiments, this note explores the nature of Ultimatum Game punishers by analyzing their behavior in a Dictator Game. In both studies, the coexistence of two entirely different sub-populations is confirmed: prosocial punishers on the one hand, who behave fairly as dictators, and spiteful (antisocial) punishers on the other, who are totally unfair. The finding has important implications regarding the evolution of cooperation and the behavioral underpinnings of stable social systems.