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Sustainable management of renewable resources: an experimental investigation in continuous time

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  • Dina Tasneem
  • Jim Engle-Warnick
  • Hassan Benchekroun

Abstract

This study addresses one of the most basic questions in renewable resource management: the ability of economic agents to exploit a renewable resource in an efficient and sustainable manner. In a laboratory experiment, subjects are presented with renewable resource extraction problems, where optimal management will lead to a stable steady state. A test of sustainability of the extraction practices shows that extraction behaviour results in steady states only 56% of the time. The mode of the steady state distribution coincides with the optimal steady state extraction. The trade-off between accruing a higher payoff in the present and sustaining the resource for future exploitation leads to suboptimal behaviours such as initial overextraction of the resource compared to the optimal extraction policy, costly downward adjustment of the extraction later in time, and settling down for lower long-run resource and extraction. The suboptimal behaviours lead to 17% loss in efficiency on average in terms of the accumulated payoff. We further look at extraction behaviour in terms of the degree of impatience it projects and find, based on their extraction decisions, that most of our subjects seem more impatient in managing their resource than is justified by the decision-making problem presented to them.

Suggested Citation

  • Dina Tasneem & Jim Engle-Warnick & Hassan Benchekroun, 2019. "Sustainable management of renewable resources: an experimental investigation in continuous time," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(35), pages 3804-3833, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:51:y:2019:i:35:p:3804-3833
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2019.1584370
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    Cited by:

    1. M. Djiguemde & D. Dubois & A. Sauquet & M. Tidball, 2022. "Continuous Versus Discrete Time in Dynamic Common Pool Resource Game Experiments," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 82(4), pages 985-1014, August.
    2. Murielle Djiguemde & Dimitri Dubois & Alexandre Sauquet & Mabel Tidball, 2019. "On the modeling and testing of groundwater resource models," CEE-M Working Papers hal-02316729, CEE-M, Universtiy of Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro.
    3. Murielle Djiguemde, 2020. "A survey on dynamic common pool resources : theory and experiment," Working Papers hal-03022377, HAL.
    4. Murielle Djiguemde, 2020. "A survey on dynamic common pool resources : theory and experiment," CEE-M Working Papers hal-03022377, CEE-M, Universtiy of Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro.

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