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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Cardenas, Juan-Camilo |
| Abstract: | Behavior in the local commons is usually embedded in a context of regulations and social norms that the group of users face. Such norms and rules affect how individuals value material and non-material incentives and therefore determine their decision to cooperate or over extract the resources from the common-pool. This paper discusses the importance of social norms in shaping behavior in the commons through the lens of experiments, and in particular experiments conducted in the field with people that usually face these social dilemmas in their daily life. Through a large sample of experimental sessions with around one thousand people between villagers and students, I test some hypothesis about behavior in the commons when regulations and social norms constrain the choices of people. The results suggest that people evaluate several components of the intrinsic and material motivations in their decision to cooperate. While responding in the expected direction to a imperfectly monitored fine on over extraction, the expected cost of the regulation is not a sufficient explanatory factor for the changes in behavior by the participants in the experiments. Even with zero cost of violations, people can respond positively to an external regulator that issues a normative statement about a rule that is aimed at solving the social dilemma. |
| Keywords: | social norms, regulations, cooperation, collective action, common-pool resources, experimental economics, field experiments., Public Economics, D71, Q0, Q2, C9, H3, H4, |
| Date: | 2009–11–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ulaedd:91168&r=evo |
| By: | Maldonado, Jorge Hignio; Moreno-Sanchez, Rocio del Pilar |
| Abstract: | Economic Experimental Games (EEGs), focused to analyze dilemmas associated with the use of common pool resources, have shown that individuals make extraction decisions that deviate from the suboptimal Nash equilibrium. However, few studies have analyzed whether these deviations towards the social optimum are affected as the stock of resource changes. Performing EEG with local fishermen, we test the hypothesis that the behavior of participants differs under a situation of abundance versus one of scarcity. Our findings show that under a situation of scarcity, players over-extract a given resource, and thus make decisions above the Nash equilibrium; in doing so, they obtain less profit, mine the others-regarding interest, and exacerbate the tragedy of the commons. This result challenges previous findings from the EEG literature. When individuals face abundance of a given resource, however, they deviate downward from the prediction of individualistic behavior. The phenomenon of private, inefficient overexploitation is corrected when management strategies are introduced into the game, something that underlines the importance of institutions. |
| Keywords: | tragedy of the commons intensified, economic experimental games, resource abundance, resource scarcity, dynamic effects, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Land Economics/Use, Public Economics, D01, D02, D03, O13, O54, Q01, Q22, C93, C72, C73, C23, |
| Date: | 2009–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ulaedd:91170&r=evo |
| By: | Francis McLaughlin (Boston College) |
| Abstract: | John Commons' influence in American labor economics was eclipsed after World War II by a resurgent neoclassical labor economics that gradually relegated Commons' institutional orientation to the periphery of economic discourse. A common opinion is that the work of institutional economists in the Commons tradition was largely descriptive and lacked theoretical content. Commons, however, regarded his Institutional Economics as a work of economic theory. This paper contains a description of the theoretical core of Institutional Economics and an evaluation of it from the perspective of its potential usefulness in the teaching of modern labor economics. Part I describes the theoretical perspective of neoclassical economic theory in order to clarify the institutional perspective by contrast. Part II describes Commons’ alternative perspective. Part III presents the conclusions derived from this comparison of the two alternative perspectives. |
| Keywords: | John R. Commons, labor economics, history of thought |
| JEL: | A21 B31 B41 J01 |
| Date: | 2010–06–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:bocoec:739&r=evo |
| By: | Andreas Nicklisch; Irenaeus Wolff |
| Abstract: | We analyze the interplay between cooperation norms and people's punishment behavior in a social-dilemma game with multiple pun- ishment stages. By combining multiple punishment stages with self- contained episodes of interaction, we are able to disentangle the e ects of retaliation and norm-related punishment. An additional treatment provides information on the norms bystanders use in judging punish- ment actions. Partly con rming previous ndings, punishment behav- ior and bystanders' opinions are guided by an absolute norm. This norm is consistent over decisions and punishment stages and requires full contributions. In the rst punishment stage, our results suggest a higher personal involvement of punishers, leading to a non-linearity de ned by the punishers' contribution. In later punishment stages, the personal-involvement e ect vanishes and retaliation kicks in. By- standers generally apply the same criteria in all stages, also favoring retaliation in response to harsh punishment actions. |
| Keywords: | Experiment, public-good, punishment, social norms, volun- tary cooperation |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:twi:respas:0054&r=evo |
| By: | Francisco M. Gonzalez |
| Abstract: | This article offers an equilibrium analysis of the influence of insecure property rights on macroeconomic outcomes. The purpose of the analysis is to show how prin- ciples of economics without the ideal of the rule of law can deepen our understanding of economic backwardness and development. |
| Date: | 2010–01–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clg:wpaper:2010-15&r=evo |
| By: | Andrea Conte (Strategic Interaction Group, Max-Planck-Institut für Okonomik, Jena, Germany); Peter G. Moffatt (School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK) |
| Abstract: | Experimental data on social preferences present a number of features that need to be incorporated in econometric modelling. We explore a variety of econometric modelling approaches to the analysis of such data. The approaches under consideration are: the random utility approach (in which it is assumed that each possible action yields a utility with a deterministic and a stochastic component, and that the individual selects the action yielding the highest utility); the random behavioural approach (which assumes that the individual computes the maximum of a deterministic utility function, and that computational error causes their observed behaviour to depart stochastically from this optimum); and the random preference approach (in which all variation in behaviour is attributed to stochastic variation in the parameters of the deterministic component of utility). These approaches are applied in various ways to an experiment on fairness conducted by Cappelen et al. (2007). At least two of the models that we estimate succeed in capturing the key features of the data set. |
| Keywords: | Econometric modelling and estimation, model evaluation, individual behaviour, fairness |
| JEL: | C51 C52 C91 D63 |
| Date: | 2010–06–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2010-042&r=evo |