An experiment on cooperation in ongoing organizations

We study experimentally whether an overlapping membership structure affects the incentives of short-lived organizational members. We compare organizations in which one member is replaced per time period to organizations in which both members are replaced at the same time. We find at best weak support for the hypothesis that an overlapping membership structure is conducive to cooperation in ongoing organizations. Incoming members are sensitive to the organizational history when membership is overlapping, as they should according to the cooperative equilibrium, but this is not enough to substantially increase cooperation levels in the organization.