Dr Shuo Yang Presented at the CeDEx 25th Anniversary

Marking a significant milestone, the CeDEx 25th Anniversary Workshop was successfully held at the University of Nottingham on 9-10 September 2025. Organised by the Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, the event brought together an international assembly of distinguished scholars and lab leaders to foster a dynamic exchange of cutting-edge research.

Dr. Shuo Yang, a member of CeDEx China, was invited to give a speech on the workshop and presented his recent research, titled “Group identity, cooperation and peer punishment”. Through a lab experiment, he and his coauthor examined how group identity affects cooperation and punishment in a heterogeneous community. They found that without punishment, contributions were lower in the heterogeneous setting. With punishment, participants were more lenient toward equally-contributing ingroup members but harsher toward under-contributing ones. Furthermore, punishees responded more positively to ingroup punishment. Consequently, peer punishment effectively enhanced cooperation in the heterogeneous community, especially when group identities were disclosed. These results indicate that peer punishment may be a more powerful tool for promoting public goods in diverse societies than previously understood, offering valuable insights for policymakers.

Following his presentation, Dr Shuo Yang was also invited to participate in a subsequent workshop on Interdisciplinary Advances in Cooperation Research, organised by Simon Gächter. This workshop is dedicated to advancing theoretical and applied research on cooperation, addressing themes such as social norms, inequality, guilt aversion, reciprocity, and climate policy.

Expressing his gratitude, Dr Shuo Yang reaffirmed his commitment to advancing CeDEx China's mission and strengthening the global network of the UNNC School of Economics.