Abstract
This paper studies how positive and negative reciprocity is affected by exposure to violence in early age. We combine a research design that isolates the exogenous exposure to violence with lab-in-the-field experiments to study how conditional cooperation (positive reciprocity) and vindictive behavior (negative reciprocity) in adolescents vary as a result of exposure to violence. We focus on young Palestinians in the West Bank region of the Palestinian territories. We find that young Palestinians more exposed to violence are more sensitive in reciprocal interactions: violence exposure increases conditional cooperation but also retaliatory behavior. Our evidence suggests that part of the effect is explained by changes in the beliefs about other people’s behavior.
Host: Gaute Torsvik