Principal-agent problems can reduce gains from exchange available in long distance trade. One solution historically used to mitigate such problems is multilateral punishment, whereby groups of principals jointly punish cheating agents by giving them bad reputations. But how does such punishment work when there is uncertainty regarding whether an agent actually cheated or was just the victim of bad luck? And how might such uncertainty be mitigated—or exacerbated—by non-observable, pro-social behavioral characteristics? We address these questions by designing a simple modified trust game with uncertainty and the capacity for principals to employ multilateral punishment. Our experimental results indicate that a modest amount of uncertainty has little effect on overall welfare: while part of the surplus is destroyed by uncertainty, principals are also more willing to trust agents with bad reputations, thereby increasing the frequency of welfare-enhancing exchange.

中文翻译：

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在没有执法的情况下进行交流：不确定性下的声誉和多边惩罚

委托代理问题会减少长距离贸易中可用交换产生的收益。历史上用于减轻此类问题的一种解决方案是多边惩罚，即，各校长团体通过给作弊者以不良声誉联合惩罚他们。但是，如果对于代理人是作弊还是倒霉的受害者尚不确定，那么这种惩罚如何起作用？以及如何通过无法观察到的亲社会行为特征来减轻或加剧这种不确定性？我们通过设计一个具有不确定性和校长采用多边惩罚的能力的简单修正的信任博弈来解决这些问题。我们的实验结果表明，适度的不确定性对整体福利影响不大：虽然部分盈余会被不确定性破坏，