Black Sheep and Walls of Silence

Muehlheusser, Gerd; Roider, Andreas (June 2005). Black Sheep and Walls of Silence (Discussion Papers 04-10). Bern: Department of Economics

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In this paper we analyze the frequently observed phenomenon that (i) some members of a team (“black sheep”) exhibit behavior disliked by other (honest) team members, who (ii) nevertheless refrain from reporting such misbehavior to the authorities (they set up a “wall of silence”). Much cited examples include hospitals and police departments. In this paper, these features arise in equilibrium. An important ingredient of our model are benefits that agents receive when cooperating with each other in a team. Our results suggest that teams in which the importance of these benefits varies across team members are especially prone to the above mentioned phenomenon.

Item Type:

Working Paper

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Department of Economics

UniBE Contributor:

Muehlheusser, Gerd

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 330 Economics

Series:

Discussion Papers

Publisher:

Department of Economics

Language:

English

Submitter:

Lars Tschannen

Date Deposited:

14 Sep 2020 15:40

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:39

JEL Classification:

D82, C73

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.145643

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/145643

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