Rules of Communication and Asymmetric Common-Pool Resource Use : Lab Experiment Evidence

Most studies on common-pool resource usage focus on situations in which actors are in symmetric positions when they use the resource. Many real-world cases do not fit this scenario because users are in asymmetric positions regarding their ability to benefit from the resource. Examples range from irrigation systems to climate change mitigation. We study whether giving participants an opportunity to communicate in an economic experiment helps to solve asymmetric common-pool resource problems, and whether communication complemented with specific rules of communication adds to the effects of communication. The rules we test are based on the ideals of democratic deliberation. Participants played a sequential asymmetric common-pool resource game in an incentivized experiment. We observed that both communication and deliberation increase investments in the common-pool resource. However, deliberation attenuated the effect of the player position in the extraction behavior more than communication. Our results suggest that deliberation may be a useful method to overcome asymmetric commons dilemmas