title: Altruistic punishment as an explanation of hunter-gatherer cooperation: how much has experimental economics achieved?
abstract: The discovery of the altruistic punishment mechanism as a replicable experimental result is a genuine achievement of behavioural economics. The hypothesis that cooperation in hunter-gatherer societies is sustained by altruistic punishment is a scientifically legitimate conjecture, but it must be tested against real-world observations. Guala's doubts about the evidential support for this hypothesis are well founded.
authors.affiliation: School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom. r.sugden@uea.ac.uk
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sugden
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011678:Punishment / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior