Punishment deters crime because humans are bounded in their strategic decision-making

Abstract

Is it rational to reduce criminal activities if punishments are increased? While intuition might suggest so, game theory concludes differently. From the game theoretical perspective, inspectors anticipate the effect of increased punishments on criminal behavior and reduce their inspection activities accordingly. This implies that higher punishments reduce inspections and do not affect crime rates. We present two laboratory experiments, which challenge this perspective by demonstrating that both, criminals and inspectors, are affected by punishment levels. Thereupon, we investigate with agent-based simulations, whether models of bounded rationality can explain our empirical data. We differentiate between two kinds of bounded rationality; the first considers bounded learning from social interaction, the second bounded decision-making. Our results suggest that humans show both kinds of bounded rationality in the strategic situation of crime, control and punishment. We conclude that it is not the rationality but the bounded rationality in humans that makes punishment effective.