Cooperation and conflict

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I have a longstanding interest in the conditions under which we should expect cooperation or conflict. In the early noughties, we developed an index called "Game Harmony" to measure how harmonious games are. It helps the analyst predict how cooperative people will be. In a series of papers, we showed how well it predicts behavior, how people behave similarly across games they perceive as similarly harmonious, and how this concept relates to socio-psychological results of strategic interactions within and between groups.

 

Such insights feed into analyzing or designing mechanisms that induce cooperation or conflict. Examples of my published work on this include understanding how competition between teams enhances cooperation within teams, designing contracts that strategically signal one's willingness and commitment to reciprocate, identifying factors that trigger off and perpetuate vendettas, and showing how a strategically similar setting but framed in cooperative terms give rise to the complete opposite result of sustained cooperation.

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Health Economics, Public Economics, and Industrial Organization are some of the main areas to which I apply behavioral and experimental insight. My recent projects involve organ and blood donation, public project collaboration, socially responsible investment, future transport systems, legislative bargaining, and R&D races.

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These are my papers on cooperation and conflict:

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Tan, J. H. W. and D. N. Jayasekara (2024) Perfect Conformity to Observable Minimal Rituals Engenders Trust: An Experimental Test of the Signaling Hypothesis. Forthcoming at Applied Psychology.

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Renaud, F. and J. H. W. Tan (2024). A Test of Loyalty.Theory and Decision, 97(1), 109-137.

 

Jayasekara, D. N. and J. H. W. Tan (2024). How do Intercultural Proximity and Social Fragmentation Promote International Patent Cooperation? Small Business Economics, 63(1), 421-445.

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Tan, J. H. W. and F. Bolle (2023). Intragroup Punishment and Intergroup Conflict Aversion Weaken Intragroup

Cooperation in Finitely Repeated Games. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 105, 102034.

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Chuah, S. H., S. Gächter, R. Hoffmann, and J. H. W. Tan (2023). Who Discriminates? Evidence From a Trust Game Experiment Across Three Societies. Journal of Economic Psychology, 97, 102630.

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Bolle F. and J. H.W. Tan (2021). Behavioral Types of the Dark Side: Identifying Heterogeneous Conflict Strategies. Journal of the Economic Science Association, 7(1), 49-63.

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Ferguson, E., R. Shichman, and J. H. W. Tan (2020). When Lone Wolf Defectors Undermine the Power of the Opt-Out Default. Scientific Reports, 10, 8973.

 

Tan, J. H. W., Y. Breitmoser and F. Bolle (2015). Voluntary Contributions by Consent or Dissent. Games and Economic Behavior, 92, 106-121.

 

Bolle, F., J. H. W. Tan and D. J. Zizzo (2014). Vendettas. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 6(2), 93-130.

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Zizzo, D. J. and J. H. W. Tan (2011). Game Harmony: A Behavioral Approach to Predicting Cooperation in Games. American Behavioral Scientist, 55(8), 987-1013.

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Perugini, M., J. H. W. Tan and D. J. Zizzo (2010). Which is the More Predictable Gender? Public Good Contribution and Personality. Economic Issues, 15(1), 83-110.

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Kritikos, A. S. and J. H. W. Tan (2009). Indenture as a Self-enforced Contract Device: An Experimental Test. Southern Economic Journal, 75(3), 857-872.

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Tan, J. H. W. and D. J. Zizzo (2008). Groups, Cooperation and Conflict in Games. Journal of Socio-Economics, 37(1), 1-17.

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Tan, J. H. W. and F. Bolle (2007). Team Competition and the Public Goods Game. Economics Letters, 96(1), 133-139.

 

Zizzo, D. J., and J. H. W. Tan (2007). Perceived Harmony, Similarity and Cooperation in 2x2 Games: An Experimental Study. Journal of Economic Psychology, 28(3), 365-386.

 

Kritikos, A. S., F. Bolle and J. H. W. Tan (2007). The Economics of Solidarity: A Conceptual Framework. Journal of Socio-Economics, 36(1), 73-89.

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