Agents interacting on a body of water choose between technologies to catch fish. One is harmless to the resource, as it allows full recovery; the other yields high immediate catches, but low(er) future catches. Strategic interaction in one objective resource game may induce subjective games in...

We introduce a stochastic game in which transition probabilities depend on the history of the play, i.e., the players' past action choices. To solve this new type of game under the limiting average reward criterion, we determine the set of jointly-convergent pure-strategy rewards which can be...

Elinor Ostrom: Die Verfassung der Allmende. Jenseits von Staat und Markt. - Die englische Originalausgabe dieses vieldiskutierten Buches ist schon vor 20 Jahren unter dem Titel 'Governing the commons. The evolution of institutions for collective action' bei Cambridge University Press erschienen....

The structure of a social dilemma lies behind many environmental problems. Mingling temporal aspects of resources with the structure of the social dilemma often leads to wrong conclusions. Therefore, it is worth analytically separating temporal aspects from structural aspects of the dilemma....

Consider a population of farmers who live around a lake. Each farmer engages in trade with his two adjacent neighbors. The trade is governed by a prisoner's dilemma 'rule of engagement'. A farmer's payoff is the sum of the payoffs from the two prisoner's dilemma games played with his two...

This article investigates economic performance when enforceable property rights are missing and subsistence needs matter. It shows that if per capita income is sufficiently high, a windfall gain in productivity triggers behavior that leads to higher growth (the normal reaction). The same shock...

This paper examines the role of other-regarding and time preferences for cooperation in the field. We study the preferences of fishermen whose main, and often only, source of income stems from using a common pool resource (CPR). The exploitation of a CPR involves a negative interpersonal and...

A tragedy of the commons appears when the users of a common resource have incentives to exploit it more than the socially efficient level. We analyze the situation when the tragedy of the commons is embedded in a network of users and sources. Users play a game of extractions, where they decide...

In a Small Fish War two agents interacting on a body of water have essentially two options: they can fish with restraint or without. Fishing with restraint is not harmful; fishing without yields a higher immediate catch, but may induce lower future catches. Inspired by recent work in biology, we...

This paper presents an experimental study that compares the ability of human groups to escape the tragedy of the commons through institutional change or communication. Teams of five players are placed in a dynamic CPR environment with inefficient institutional settings. The results clearly show...

Two agents possess the fishing rights to a lake. Each period they have two options, to catch without restraint, e.g., to use a fine-mazed net, or to catch with some restraint, e.g., to use a wide-mazed net. The use of a fine-mazed net always yields a higher immediate catch than the alternative....

With the disintegration of the USSR a conflict arose between Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan over the Syr Darya river. Upstream Kyrgyzstan operates the Toktogul reservoir which generates hydropower demanded mainly in winter for heating. Downstream Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan need irrigation...

This paper investigates a local problem of common pool resources (CPR), the solution of which needs a balance between the collective and private interests. In the political context we have a large group of actors with a short planning horizon and a lack of trust among them. CPR provision is...

This paper focuses on the interactions between local communities having at least some degree of informal claims over natural resources and external agents, particularly firms interested in commercial resource exploitation. The paper makes three contributions to the existing literature. First,...

Im folgenden wird zunächst an einem konkreten Beispiel illustriert, worin die Pointe der 'institutionellen Ergonomie' liegt. Anschließend wird das Gemeingutdilemma als ein wichtiges Problem für institutionelles Design vorgestellt. Anhand dieses Beispielproblems sollen dann alle weiteren...

Commons and Anticommons problems are the consequence of symmetric structural departures from a unified conception of property. In this paper, we endeavor to provide a dual model of property, where commons and anticommons problems are the consequence of a lack of conformity between use and...

The paper analyses the institutional dynamics surrounding common-pool resources in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe. It is conceived in close conjunction with the case studies reported in the four preceding papers in this series. The purpose of this paper is to frame the individual case...

This paper presents an experimental study on the ability of human groups to escape the tragedy of the commons through institutional change. It shows that the groups identify institutional change as a means of resolving social dilemmas and are ready to apply it even if the change requires an...

Customary rules governing access to land and other natural resources in village societies have characteristics that allow them to fulfil social security functions and achieve equity objectives. This is true of both common-property resources and land parcels held under individualized tenure....

Water for irrigation and irrigation infrastructure are both common pool resources, due to their low excludability and high rivalry. The well-known common pool resource dilemma is often the consequence. Collective action may be a way how societies can overcome this dilemma. First results from a...

This paper introduces a solution for the fair division of common property resources in production economies with multiple inputs and outputs. It is derived from complementing the Walrasian solution by welfare bounds, whose ethical justification rests on commonality of ownership. We then apply...

Recent scholarship on the impact of fiscal institutions on budgeting outcomes in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries indicates that political institutions impact the level of budget discipline. BuiIding upon this previous research, we argue that the principle problem that must be...

The probability that an agent takes a certain action or a certain event occurs depends often on the actions taken by some agents. If this probability depends not only on current actions but on the sum of all past actions, these stock-dependent risks imply an intertemporal effect. In the present...

Environmental norms seem to be on the upsurge everywhere. Norm-orientation is, however, neglected in neoclassical economics which is fixed on homo economicus as the model of human behaviour. The paper addresses the question whether homo economicus needs to give way to a norm-oriented concept in...