Citing this article

A standard form of citation of this article is:

Rauhut, Heiko and Junker, Marcel (2009). 'Punishment Deters Crime Because Humans Are Bounded in Their Strategic Decision-Making'. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 12(3)1 <https://www.jasss.org/12/3/1.html>.

The following can be copied and pasted into a Bibtex bibliography file, for use with the LaTeX text processor:

@article{rauhut2009,
title = {Punishment Deters Crime Because Humans Are Bounded in Their Strategic Decision-Making},
author = {Rauhut, Heiko and Junker, Marcel},
journal = {Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation},
ISSN = {1460-7425},
volume = {12},
number = {3},
pages = {1},
year = {2009},
URL = {https://www.jasss.org/12/3/1.html},
keywords = {Crime, Punishment, Control, Bounded Rationality, Agent-Based Simulation, Experiment, Game Theory},
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.},
}

The following can be copied and pasted into a text file, which can then be imported into a reference database that supports imports using the RIS format, such as Reference Manager and EndNote.


TY - JOUR
TI - Punishment Deters Crime Because Humans Are Bounded in Their Strategic Decision-Making
AU - Rauhut, Heiko
AU - Junker, Marcel
Y1 - 2009/06/30
JO - Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
SN - 1460-7425
VL - 12
IS - 3
SP - 1
UR - https://www.jasss.org/12/3/1.html
KW - Crime
KW - Punishment
KW - Control
KW - Bounded Rationality
KW - Agent-Based Simulation
KW - Experiment
KW - Game Theory
N2 - 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.
ER -