内生制度绩效与程序正当:基于中国被试的实验研究

面对囚徒式社会困境,主流的思路基本是延续庇古的传统,从机制设计的视角,引入博弈规则(如惩或奖)使局中人各方"讲真话",进而提高合作绩效。但大量以西方被试为对象的研究表明,与外部强加的相比,同样的博弈规则由内部成员投票决定的情况下合作绩效更高,称之为内生溢价。然而,有研究表明这一结论并不适用于中国这样的集体主义文化情景。对此,提出纳入程序正当的偏好解释框架,认为个体因文化传统经历而形成的、对于博弈规则产生程序的正当性评价不同,导致跨文化群体中内生制度绩效差异。在此基础上,设计多阶段公共品实验进行检验。首先,请144名学生分6批次参与不同顺序的独立局公共品实验,依次在标准公共品实验、带惩罚公共品实验,以及成员投票决定是否惩罚的公共品实验中作出投入决策;其次,被试参与出钱购买程序进入权的竞价局,以愿意为进入投票程序花费的金钱测量个体关于程序正当的异质性偏好;最后,所有被试填写一份价值观问卷。研究结果表明,①群体层面上,与西方被试不同,中国被试在成员投票与自动强加的制度情景下合作绩效无显著差异,但以出价区分偏好投票和不偏好投票两类子群体,前者内生溢价而后者无溢价;②个体层面上,投票偏好越强,则在成员投票情景下投入越高;③结合价值观问卷调查发现,基于程序正当的投票偏好与个体秉持的后物质主义价值观、个体责任感知、风险偏好有关。上述结果表明,整体上西方社会普遍存在的内生溢价现象在中国文化背景下并未呈现,但这一结论并非说明民主制度安排不适用于中国情景。事实上,以出价区分被试类型存在部分个体偏好投票程序,而呈现出内生溢价趋势。因此,制度转型过程中,应充分考虑受众秉持的正当性价值认同,从而引入与民情相符的制度安排(如民主投票),促进合作产出的最大化。这对于理解当下矛盾突出的基层选举自治困境具有重要意义。

Performance of Endogenous Institution and Procedural Legitimacy:An Experimental Study on Chinese Subjects

In order to solve social problems such as the prisoner’s dilemma,the mainstream scholars following the tradition of Pigou propose that game rules(punishment or reward)should be established from the perspective of mechanism design to force all parties in the game to"tell the truth",thereby enhancing cooperation performance.However,a large number of experimental studies using western subjects have found out that the effect of a game rule on the level of cooperation is greater when it is chosen endogenously by the participants than when it is imposed by an external authority,which is called the endogenous premium.Nevertheless,as some scholars have pointed out,this conclusion may not apply to China with cultural characteristic of collectivism.In this regard,this study builds a preference-based explanatory framework that incorporates procedural legitimacy into individual preferences.According to this theory,individuals acquire different legitimacy identifications about the procedural rule generating game rules through cultural experiences,which is an important reason for the difference in endogenous institutional performance among cross-cultural groups.To test this causality,we design a multi-stage public goods experiment.In the first stage,144 students are divided into 6 sessions to participate in the experiment and the participants in each session make a decision on how many tokens they want to invest in public project in different institutional situations such as the standard public goods experiment,the public goods experiment with punishment and the experiment where members can vote to decide whether to punish freeriders.In the second stage,the voting right purchase experiment,which gives the participants a chance to bid for the right of entering their favorite procedure,is implemented to measure participants’procedural preferences.The monetary cost that the participants are willing to pay is used to measure their heterogeneous preferences on the procedural rule.In the end,all participants fill out the questionnaires for their values.The experimental results show that,first of all,at the group level,there is no significant difference in the cooperative performance of Chinese participants between voting and automatically imposed situation.However,according to whether they are willing to participate in costly voting,we divide all the participants into two groups,one of which prefers voting and the other does not,and we find that the former group has an endogenous premium while the latter does not.Secondly,at the individual level,the stronger the voting preference is,the higher the cooperation level in the voting situation is.Finally,combined with values survey,it is found out that the voting preference based on the procedural legitimacy is related to the post-materialism value,self-determination perception and risk preference held by the individuals.Although the above results indicate that the endogenous premium phenomenon prevailing in western society does not exist in the context of Chinese culture,it does not mean that the democratic system cannot effectively operate in China.In fact,according to types of participants distinguished by their bidding behavior,some individuals prefer the voting procedure and contribute more in the voting situation.Therefore,we should incorporate individuals’legitimizing value identity into the institutional design,and establish institutional arrangements(such as democratic voting)that match moeurs held by the public to achieve the maximum output of cooperation.This is of great significance for understanding the dilemma of electoral autonomy at the grass-roots level.