CeDEx Seminar - Benedikt Herrmann (Research Centre at European Commission)

Local punishment and the wealth of nations

Experimental research has provided valuable insights into the nature and significance of peer-to-peer interactions within the framework of public goods provision and group contests for resources. The CeDEx group has made many important contributions to this field. These insights could be key to improving our understanding of how fiscal structures influence medium- and long-term economic growth and societal stability. In this talk, I will first review these findings to examine the 'behavioural anatomy' of local governments. I will then consider fiscal structures within central governments, examining how these structures might affect local governments and peer-to-peer interactions within them. Next, I will present the first quasi-experimental findings from my own research in the field to support this behavioural reasoning. The talk concludes with a call for laboratory and field experiments on the 'behavioural mechanics' of fiscal structures and how local governments respond to them.