On 9 June 2022, the 25th Xi Xian Forum on Income Distribution and Public Finance, co-organised by IIDPF and the Institute of Public Finance and Taxation, was successfully held in Conference Room 119, Wenqin Building. Dr Yang Shuo, Assistant Professor at Wuhan University's School of Economics and Management, was invited to deliver a keynote speech on "Group Identity and Peer Punishment" as the guest speaker of the 25th Xi Xian Forum. The forum was chaired by Professor Lu Yuanping, Executive Deputy Director of IIDPF, and attended by more than ten participants, including Professor Sun Qunli, Deputy Director of IIDPF, Professor Zeng Jingjing from the School of Public Administration, and all the researchers of IIDPF.
The question of how to avoid free-riding behaviour of economic agents is an important issue in economic research. To address this issue, Dr Yang Shuo designed a series of public goods game experiments that introduced groups into 'communities' to explore the effects of group identity, punishment and their cooperation on their public goods contribution. The findings suggest that peer punishment may produce higher levels of cooperation and greater economic efficiency in heterogeneous communities than in homogeneous communities without groups. Within communities where different groups exist, the facilitative effect of punishment depends on group classification and the transparency of information about the punisher's group identity. Meanwhile, Dr. Yang's theoretical study suggests that peer punishment is more beneficial in heterogeneous communities than in homogeneous communities studied in the previous literature.
Dr. Yang Shuo's speech aroused the interest and resonance of the faculty and students present. There were active exchanges and in-depth discussions on research design, mechanism analysis and other issues. Dr. Yang's research provides valuable suggestions for policy development related to increasing public goods.