IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/enreec/v71y2018i4d10.1007_s10640-017-0193-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Resource Uncertainty and Intergroup Conflict on Harvesting in the Common-Pool Resource Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Karolina Safarzynska

    (Warsaw University)

Abstract

How do resource uncertainty and intergroup conflict affect intragroup cooperation over resources in the common pool dilemmas? Does a danger of sudden resource depletion encourage random acts of violence? There are concerns that climate change will escalate conflicts over, and the scarcity of, renewable resources, which are already under threat or in a state of decline. However, we know surprisingly little about the impact of uncertainty on intergroup conflict over resources. In this paper, we present experimental evidence from a mixed design experiment with two-between-group factors: (1) the presence (or absence) of shocks that can destroy a part of resources; and (2) the availability of intergroup conflict. We find that random shocks encourage resource conservation within groups. The positive impact of resource uncertainty on resource conservation disappears in the presence of conflict. It seems that subjects protect themselves from resource exhaustion in the presence of shocks by engaging in conflict and taking resources from the out-group instead of reducing extraction. In general, conflict promotes intragroup cooperation, but this is conditional on the outcomes of past conflicts. In particular, groups harvest more after wins, and only reduce extraction after losing resources in conflict.

Suggested Citation

  • Karolina Safarzynska, 2018. "The Impact of Resource Uncertainty and Intergroup Conflict on Harvesting in the Common-Pool Resource Experiment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(4), pages 1001-1025, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:71:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s10640-017-0193-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10640-017-0193-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-017-0193-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10640-017-0193-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mariaflavia Harari & Eliana La Ferrara, 2018. "Conflict, Climate, and Cells: A Disaggregated Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(4), pages 594-608, October.
    2. Abbink, Klaus & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2009. "The pleasure of being nasty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 306-308, December.
    3. Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Defense Economics," Handbook of Defense Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 1.
    4. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Wilson, Bart J., 2013. "Insiders, outsiders, and the adaptability of informal rules to ecological shocks," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 29-40.
    5. Blanco, Esther & Lopez, Maria Claudia & Villamayor-Tomas, Sergio, 2015. "Exogenous degradation in the commons: Field experimental evidence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 430-439.
    6. Lata Gangadharan & Veronika Nemes, 2009. "Experimental Analysis Of Risk And Uncertainty In Provisioning Private And Public Goods," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(1), pages 146-164, January.
    7. Klaus Abbink & Jordi Brandts & Benedikt Herrmann & Henrik Orzen, 2010. "Intergroup Conflict and Intra-group Punishment in an Experimental Contest Game," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 420-447, March.
    8. Budescu David V. & Rapoport Amnon & Suleiman Ramzi, 1995. "Common Pool Resource Dilemmas under Uncertainty: Qualitative Tests of Equilibrium Solutions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 171-201, July.
    9. Walker, James M & Gardner, Roy, 1992. "Probabilistic Destruction of Common-Pool Resources: Experimental Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(414), pages 1149-1161, September.
    10. Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Appropriating the Commons - A Theoretical Explanation," IEW - Working Papers 055, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    11. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    12. Aflaki, Sam, 2013. "The effect of environmental uncertainty on the tragedy of the commons," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 240-253.
    13. Eleonora Nillesen & Erwin Bulte, 2014. "Natural Resources and Violent Conflict," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 69-83, October.
    14. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    15. Gunnthorsdottir, Anna & Rapoport, Amnon, 2006. "Embedding social dilemmas in intergroup competition reduces free-riding," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 184-199, November.
    16. Uri Gneezy & Jan Potters, 1997. "An Experiment on Risk Taking and Evaluation Periods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 631-645.
    17. Pomeroy, Robert & Parks, John & Pollnac, Richard & Campson, Tammy & Genio, Emmanuel & Marlessy, Cliff & Holle, Elizabeth & Pido, Michael & Nissapa, Ayut & Boromthanarat, Somsak & Thu Hue, Nguyen, 2007. "Fish wars: Conflict and collaboration in fisheries management in Southeast Asia," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 645-656, November.
    18. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Skaperdas, Stergios, 2007. "Economics of Conflict: An Overview," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 649-709, Elsevier.
    19. Antoniadou, Elena & Koulovatianos, Christos & Mirman, Leonard J., 2013. "Strategic exploitation of a common-property resource under uncertainty," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 28-39.
    20. Anabela Botelho & Ariel Dinar & Lígia Costa Pinto & Amnon Rapoport, 2014. "Time and uncertainty in resource dilemmas: equilibrium solutions and experimental results," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(4), pages 649-672, December.
    21. Ostrom, Elinor & Walker, James & Gardner, Roy, 1992. "Covenants with and without a Sword: Self-Governance Is Possible," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(2), pages 404-417, June.
    22. Abbink, Klaus & Brandts, Jordi & Herrmann, Benedikt & Orzen, Henrik, 2012. "Parochial altruism in inter-group conflicts," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 45-48.
    23. Carol R. Ember & Melvin Ember, 1992. "Resource Unpredictability, Mistrust, and War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(2), pages 242-262, June.
    24. Ostrom, Elinor, 2006. "The value-added of laboratory experiments for the study of institutions and common-pool resources," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 149-163, October.
    25. Dickinson, David L., 1998. "The voluntary contributions mechanism with uncertain group payoffs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 517-533, May.
    26. Karl Sigmund & Hannelore De Silva & Arne Traulsen & Christoph Hauert, 2010. "Social learning promotes institutions for governing the commons," Nature, Nature, vol. 466(7308), pages 861-863, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin Ouvrard & Stefan Ambec & Arnaud Reynaud & Stéphane Cezera & Murudaiah Shivamurthy, 2022. "Sharing rules for a common-pool resource in a lab experiment," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(3), pages 605-635, October.
    2. Timothy N. Cason & Steven Y. Wu, 2019. "Subject Pools and Deception in Agricultural and Resource Economics Experiments," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(3), pages 743-758, July.
    3. Ana Alicia Dipierri & Dimitrios Zikos, 2020. "The Role of Common-Pool Resources’ Institutional Robustness in a Collective Action Dilemma under Environmental Variations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-21, December.
    4. Safarzynska, Karolina & Sylwestrzak, Marta, 2021. "Resource depletion and conflict: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 902-917.
    5. Bekele, Adugna Eneyew & Drabik, Dusan & Dries, Liesbeth & Heijman, Wim, 2022. "Large-scale land investments and land-use conflicts in the agro-pastoral areas of Ethiopia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    6. Safarzynska, Karolina, 2020. "Collective punishment promotes resource conservation if it is not enforced," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    7. Chiara D’Alpaos & Michele Moretto & Paolo Rosato, 2023. "Common-Property Resource Exploitation: A Real Options Approach," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-22, June.
    8. Olanipekun, Ifedolapo Olabisi & Ozkan, Oktay & Olasehinde-Williams, Godwin, 2023. "Is renewable energy use lowering resource-related uncertainties?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Safarzynska, Karolina & Sylwestrzak, Marta, 2021. "Resource depletion and conflict: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 902-917.
    2. Safarzynska, Karolina, 2020. "Collective punishment promotes resource conservation if it is not enforced," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    3. Brookins, Philip & Lightle, John P. & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2015. "An experimental study of sorting in group contests," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 16-25.
    4. Astrid Hopfensitz & César Mantilla & Josepa Miquel-Florensa, 2019. "Catch Uncertainty and Reward Schemes in a Commons Dilemma: An Experimental Study," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(4), pages 1121-1153, April.
    5. Stoddard, Brock & Walker, James M. & Williams, Arlington, 2014. "Allocating a voluntarily provided common-property resource: An experimental examination," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 141-155.
    6. Angela C. M. Oliveira, 2021. "When risky decisions generate externalities," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 59-79, August.
    7. Maas, Alexander & Goemans, Christopher & Manning, Dale & Kroll, Stephan & Brown, Thomas, 2017. "Dilemmas, coordination and defection: How uncertain tipping points induce common pool resource destruction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 760-774.
    8. Changxia Ke & Kai A. Konrad & Florian Morath, 2015. "Alliances In The Shadow Of Conflict," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(2), pages 854-871, April.
    9. Martin Kolmar & Andreas Wagener, 2019. "Group Identities in Conflicts," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 165-192, December.
    10. Selles Jules & Bonhommeau Sylvain & Guillotreau Patrice & Vallée Thomas, 2020. "Can the Threat of Economic Sanctions Ensure the Sustainability of International Fisheries? An Experiment of a Dynamic Non-cooperative CPR Game with Uncertain Tipping Point," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(1), pages 153-176, May.
    11. Fischer, Maria-Elisabeth & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2004. "An intergenerational common pool resource experiment," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 811-836, September.
    12. Blanco, Esther & Dutcher, E. Glenn & Haller, Tobias, 2020. "Social dilemmas with public and private insurance against losses," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 924-937.
    13. Esther Blanco & Tobias Haller & James M. Walker, 2017. "Externalities in appropriation: responses to probabilistic losses," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 793-808, December.
    14. Kölle, Felix, 2020. "Governance and Group Conflict," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224515, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Vincent Théroude & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2017. "Cooperation in a risky world," Working Papers 1704, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    16. Hubert János Kiss & Alfonso Rosa-Garcia & Vita Zhukova, 2023. "Group contest in a coopetitive setup: experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 18(3), pages 463-490, July.
    17. Caleb A. Cox & Brock Stoddard, 2021. "Common-Value Public Goods and Informational Social Dilemmas," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 343-369, May.
    18. Stoop, Jan & van Soest, Daan & Vyrastekova, Jana, 2018. "Rewards and cooperation in social dilemma games," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 300-310.
    19. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Jaume García-Segarra & Alexander Ritschel, 2018. "The Big Robber Game," ECON - Working Papers 291, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Zhang, Huanren, 2019. "Common fate motivates cooperation: The influence of risks on contributions to public goods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 12-21.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:71:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s10640-017-0193-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.