Toward a delineation of the circumstances in which cooperation can be sustained in environmental and resource problems
van Soest,Daan Stoop,J.T.R. Vyrastekova,J.
van Soest,Daan
Stoop,J.T.R.
Vyrastekova,J.
Abstract
Play in standard laboratory Public Good games suggests that on average, humans are quite prone to cooperate. Yet cooperation is often absent in real world social dilemmas, including many environmental problems. We propose that this discrepancy arises because in the Public Good game, the worst freeriders can do is to not contribute to the public account, while in many real world environmental situations freeriders can even appropriate contributions made by others before the public good is produced. We introduce the Claim Game that modifies the Public Good game by allowing for appropriating the contributions of others before the public good is produced. The impact of such possible takings on public good production is dramatic. No public good is produced, not even in the initial stages of interaction, We link our findings to the relevance of common pool games for modeling environmental problems, and stress the need to experimentally test environmental institutions within harsher social dilemmas than the standard Public Good game. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Description
Date
2016-05
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Social dilemma, Public Good game, Common pool resource game, Laboratory experiments, C72 - Noncooperative Games, C92 - Laboratory, Group Behavior, D74 - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliance; Revolutions
Citation
van Soest, D, Stoop, J T R & Vyrastekova, J 2016, 'Toward a delineation of the circumstances in which cooperation can be sustained in environmental and resource problems', Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, vol. 77, pp. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2015.12.004