Triggering Cooperation
Abstract:
Cooperation of users is fundamental to the management of common pool reso urces. Russell Hardin took the pessimistic view that we are headed for a tr agedy of the commons, but Elinor Ostrom pointed to many examples of success ful cooperative local institutions. Her work inspired large scale forest de volution reforms in many developing countries. Unfortunately, success has b een limited. There seems to be a gap in knowledge on how cooperation is tri ggered, especially after rapid change on management rights. We bring a new proposal to the table, which in theory triggers cooperation at low cost. Th e idea is to provide prospective forest owners with outside-options, so tha t participation becomes voluntary. Combine the insight that social preferen ces transform social dilemmas into coordination problems with the logic of forward induction; the prediction is that the outside options will be rejec ted and that the foresters will help each other in the woods. The outside o ptions may be costly to provide if chosen, but in theory those burdens are counterfactual and no cost is thus incurred. We test the empirical relevanc e of our proposal in a lab-in-the-field experiment in the Ethiopian highlan ds.
DTSTAMP:20260406T163617Z DTSTART:20150616T130000Z DTEND:20150616T140000Z SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR