Common Pool Resource Appropriation under Costly Cooperation 1 (original) (raw)
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Common Pool Resource Appropriation under Costly Cooperation
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2001
In addition to the usual fixed costs, we introduce variable costs in a community's effort to cooperate in extracting from a common pool resource. Using a standard supervision mechanism, these variable costs are shown to be an increasing function of individual members' incentives to default. The model explains why we frequently observe communities that all cooperate and have relatively similar resource endowments, and yet achieve very different levels of extraction.
Intergroup cooperation in common pool resource dilemmas
Fundamental problems of environmental sustainability, including climate change and fisheries management, require collective action on a scale that transcends the political and cultural boundaries of the nation-state. Rational, selfinterested neoclassical economic theories of human behavior predict tragedy in the absence of third party enforcement of agreements and practical difficulties that prevent privatization. Evolutionary biology offers a theory of cooperation, but more often than not in a context of discrimination against other groups. That is, in-group boundaries are necessarily defined by those excluded as members of out-groups. However, in some settings human's exhibit behavior that is inconsistent with both rational economic and group driven cooperation of evolutionary biological theory. This paper reports the results of a non-cooperative game-theoretic exercise that
Endogenous Provision and Appropriation in the Commons
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 1998
When a resource is under common property, access is restricted to members of the community, creating the potential of avoiding the tragedy of the commons that characterizes resource use under open access (Bromley). Serious difficulties remain, however, in managing the resource in a way that is socially optimum because of the rival nature of appropriation by individual members. Achieving the social optimum requires either inducing a noncooperative behavior by individual members that mimics what cooperative behavior would dictate, or inducing cooperative behavior. A number of set ups have been identified where the first holds, for instance when the payoffs correspond to a chicken game, an assurance game, or tit-for-tat, or the Folk Theorem in repeated games . There is a vast qualitative literature on the determinants of cooperation, with some success stories but also many failures . If, in addition, cooperation is costly, socially optimum resource use may deviate from the first best costless cooperative solution to an extent that reflects the importance of these costs (see section III below). Hence, even when there is cooperation, observed resource use relative to the costless social optimum appears as if there were different qualities of cooperation in communities characterized by differential costs of cooperating. If we are advocating cooperation as a solution to misuse of common property resources (CPR), we consequently need to develop models that can explain why we observe these presumed different qualities of cooperation across communities. While there are many "soft" arguments about the costs of cooperation, we lack a theory that formalizes the quality of cooperation achieved, expliciting the origins and consequences of transactions costs in determining cooperative outcomes. It is the first objectives of this paper to propose such a model. For many CPR, use by a community member requires deciding not only on how much effort to make in appropriating the resource in a rival fashion, but also how much effort to deliver in providing the resource (Baland and Platteau). Provision decisions include participation to construction and maintenance of collective infrastructure (e.g., cleaning irrigation canals), protecting the CPR from encroachment by outsiders (surveillance), reforestation, and use of nets with larger mesh to allow protection of fry. Under non-cooperative behavior in a community with M members, the provider chooses the level of effort, taking for given the level of provision of the other M-1 members. If the provider only appropriates 1/M-th of the outcome of his provision, effort at providing creates a positive externality on others, and each provider under-provides . This is the CPR equivalent to the Marshallian disincentive in sharecropping created by the fact that the tenant only captures a share of the product created by his labor provision. How much effort the non-cooperative provider will make hence depends on the rules for appropriation of the resource. These rules may be exogenous, for instance egalitarian sharing or sharing proportional to an asset position such as land to be irrigated. The total amount to be appropriated also depends on the quality of cooperation. In this case, the level of provision depends on the quality of cooperation achieved in appropriation.
Bonus and Penalty in Common Pool Resource Dilemmas under Uncertainty
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2001
Common pool resource (CPR) dilemmas constitute a class of social dilemmas in which equilibrium behavior results in Pareto deficient outcomes that are not at all desirable by the group. We focus on a class of CPR dilemmas that, in addition to strategic uncertainty about the harvesting behavior of the other group members, include environmental uncertainty about the size of the CPR. In an attempt to decrease the rate of requests from the common pool, and thereby increase individual payoffs, we extend previous research-both theoretically and experimentally-in two different directions. In the bonus treatment, a reward is given to the agent(s) who requests the least, and in the penalty treatment, a charge is imposed on the agent(s) who requests the most. We show that under equilibrium play the bonus treatment decreases total group request, whereas the penalty treatment increases it. Our experimental results do not support this prediction. Rather, both treatments considerably decrease the rate of request and, therefore, increase the rate of provision. The penalty treatment is shown to be more effective in reducing individual requests and enhancing provision rates than the bonus treatment. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2013
Using a common pool resource game protocol with voting we examine experimentally how cooperation varies with the level at which (binding) votes are aggregated. Our results are broadly in line with theoretical predictions. When players can vote on the behavior of the whole group or when leaders from each group can vote for the group as a whole, extraction levels from the common resource pool are close to the social optimum. When players extract resources individually, there is substantial overextraction. When players vote in subgroups, there is initially less overextraction but it increases over time. This suggests that in order for binding voting to overcome the tragedy of the commons in social dilemmas, it should ideally affect the group as a whole.
Ecological Economics, 2011
Cooperation among humans is highly dependent on social and institutional conditions, with individual incentives playing a key role in determining the level of cooperation achieved. Understanding the conditions under which cooperation can emerge has important implications for the design of resource management and wildlife conservation interventions. Incentive-based conservation approaches are being widely implemented, yet very few studies test the role of incentives in promoting cooperation in relevant developing country contexts. Using a common pool resource game, in four villages in Cambodia, we investigated how the level of withingroup cooperation varies under different institutional arrangements, including opportunities for social approval, external enforcement of rules and individual and collective incentive payments. Our results demonstrate the significance of self-organisation, the ability to devise, monitor and enforce a set of rules, among resource users. Treatments which promoted self-organisation had the greatest effect in reducing individual extraction, achieved the greatest efficiencies and had the strongest interaction with group decision-making in reducing extraction. The effects of these treatments carried over to reduce extraction in subsequent treatments, irrespective of their institutional arrangements. These results suggest that policies designed to incentivise certain behaviour in local stakeholder groups may be more successful if they create opportunities for local decision-making.
Inequality, Collective Action and Environmental …, 2001
The rich, Lofoten cod fishery in Northern Norway has been successfully self-governed and managed for more than 100 years. The rules that regulate the use of this fishery -and make it likely that the fishery will be sustainable into the future -have been devised by the boatowners themselves with minimal external assistance or coercion. Local regulatory committees are elected by the boat-owners, set regulations regarding the use of the fishery, and effectively monitor this system . Once their own regulations are in place, monitored, and sanctions for non-compliance are regularly applied, it is relatively easy to understand why the boat owners would comply with well-designed and enforced rules.
Resource heterogeneity can facilitate cooperation
Nature Communications, 2013
Although social structure is known to promote cooperation, by locally exposing selfish agents to their own deeds, studies to date assumed that all agents have access to the same level of resources. This is clearly unrealistic. Here we find that cooperation can be maintained when some agents have access to more resources than others. Cooperation can then emerge even in populations in which the temptation to defect is so strong that players would act fully selfishly if their resources were distributed uniformly. Resource heterogeneity can thus be crucial for the emergence and maintenance of cooperation. We also show that resource heterogeneity can hinder cooperation once the temptation to defect is significantly lowered. In all cases, the level of cooperation can be maximized by managing resource heterogeneity.