IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/ulaedd/91169.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Collective Action for Watershed Management: Field Experiments in Colombia and Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Cardenas, Juan-Camilo
  • Rodriguez, Luz Angela
  • Johnson, Nancy L.

Abstract

The dilemma of collective action around water use and management involves solving both the problems of provision and appropriation. Cooperation in the provision can be affected by the rival nature of the appropriation and the asymmetries in the access. We report two field experiments conducted in Colombia and Kenya. The Irrigation Game was used to explore the provision and appropriation decisions under asymmetric or sequential appropriation, complemented with a Voluntary Contribution Mechanism experiment which looks at provision decisions under symmetric appropriation. The overall results were consistent with the patterns of previous studies: the zero contribution hypotheses is rejected whereas the most effective institution to increase cooperation was face-to-face communication, and above external regulations, although we find that communication works much more effectively in Colombia. We also find that the asymmetric appropriation did reduce cooperation, though the magnitude of the social loss and the effectiveness of alternative institutional options varied across sites.

Suggested Citation

  • Cardenas, Juan-Camilo & Rodriguez, Luz Angela & Johnson, Nancy L., 2009. "Collective Action for Watershed Management: Field Experiments in Colombia and Kenya," Documentos CEDE Series 91169, Universidad de Los Andes, Economics Department.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:ulaedd:91169
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.91169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/91169/files/CEDE%202009-26%20Web.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.91169?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cardenas, Juan Camilo & Stranlund, John & Willis, Cleve, 2002. "Economic inequality and burden-sharing in the provision of local environmental quality," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 379-395, March.
    2. repec:feb:artefa:00031 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Onyango, L. & Swallow, B. & Roy, J. L. & Meinzen-Dick, R., 2007. "Coping with history and hydrology: how Kenya\u2019s settlement and land tenure patterns shape contemporary water rights and gender relations in water," IWMI Books, Reports H040694, International Water Management Institute.
    4. Glenn W. Harrison & John A. List, 2004. "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1055, December.
    5. van Koppen, Barbara & Giordano, Mark & Butterworth, J., 2007. "Community-based water law and water resource management reform in developing countries," IWMI Books, Reports H040683, International Water Management Institute.
    6. Cardenas, Juan-Camilo & Ostrom, Elinor, 2004. "What do people bring into the game? Experiments in the field about cooperation in the commons," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 307-326, December.
    7. Elinor Ostrom & Roy Gardner, 1993. "Coping with Asymmetries in the Commons: Self-Governing Irrigation Systems Can Work," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 93-112, Fall.
    8. van Koppen, Barbara & Giordano, Mark & Butterworth, John, 2007. "Community-based water law and water resource management reform in developing countries," IWMI Books, International Water Management Institute, number 138046.
    9. van Koppen, Barbara & Giordano, Mark & Butterworth, J. & Mapedza, Everisto, 2007. "Community-based water law and water resource management reform in developing countries: rationale, contents and key messages," IWMI Books, Reports H040684, International Water Management Institute.
    10. Swallow, B. & Onyango, L. & Meinzen-Dick, R., 2007. "Irrigation management and poverty dynamics: case study of the Nyando Basin in Western Kenya," IWMI Books, Reports H040695, International Water Management Institute.
    11. Juan-Camilo Cardenas & T. K. Ahn & Elinor Ostrom, 2004. "Communication and Co-operation in a Common-Pool Resource Dilemma: A Field Experiment," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Steffen Huck (ed.), Advances in Understanding Strategic Behaviour, chapter 12, pages 258-286, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Juan Camilo Cardenas & Luz Angela Rodríguez & Nancy Johnson, 2014. "Vertical Collective Action: Addressing Vertical Asymmetries in Watershed Management," Documentos CEDE 12608, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    2. Crow, Ben & Swallow, Brent & Asamba, Isabella, 2012. "Community Organized Household Water Increases Not Only Rural incomes, but Also Men’s Work," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 528-541.
    3. Juan Camilo Cárdenas, 2009. "Experiments in Environment and Development," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 157-182, September.
    4. Aarnoudse, E. & Closas, Alvar & Lefore, Nicole, 2018. "Water user associations: a review of approaches and alternative management options for Sub-Saharan Africa," IWMI Working Papers H048782, International Water Management Institute.
    5. Röttgers, Dirk, 2016. "Conditional cooperation, context and why strong rules work — A Namibian common-pool resource experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 21-31.
    6. Valentino Cattelan, 2013. "Introduction. Babel, Islamic finance and Europe: preliminary notes on property rights pluralism," Chapters, in: Valentino Cattelan (ed.), Islamic Finance in Europe, chapter 1, pages 1-12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Hartwig, Lana D. & Jackson, Sue & Osborne, Natalie, 2020. "Trends in Aboriginal water ownership in New South Wales, Australia: The continuities between colonial and neoliberal forms of dispossession," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    8. Holt, Charles A. & Johnson, Cathleen & Mallow, Courtney & Sullivan, Sean P., 2010. "Tragedy of the common canal," MPRA Paper 20838, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Harrison, Elizabeth, 2018. "Engineering change? The idea of ‘the scheme’ in African irrigation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 246-255.
    10. Maria Alejandra Velez & James J. Murphy & John K. Stranlund, 2010. "Centralized And Decentralized Management Of Local Common Pool Resources In The Developing World: Experimental Evidence From Fishing Communities In Colombia," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(2), pages 254-265, April.
    11. Valentino Cattelan, 2017. "Legal Pluralism, Property Rights and the Paradigm of Islamic Economics التعددية القانونية وحقوق الملكية والنموذج الإرشادي للاقتصاد الإسلامي," Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics, King Abdulaziz University, Islamic Economics Institute., vol. 30(1), pages 21-36, January.
    12. Johanna Kramm & Lars Wirkus, 2010. "Local Water Governance: Negotiating Water Access and Resolving Resource Conflicts in Tanzanian Irrigation Schemes," Research Working Papers 33, MICROCON - A Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict.
    13. repec:abd:kauiea:v:30:y:2017:i:1:p:21-36 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. van Koppen, Barbara & Schreiner, B., . "A hybrid approach to statutory water law to support smallholder farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) in Sub-Saharan Africa," Papers published in Journals (Open Access), International Water Management Institute, pages 12(1):146-1.
    15. Pfaff, Alexander & Vélez, Maria Alejandra & Ramos, Pablo Andres & Molina, Adriana, 2015. "Framed field experiment on resource scarcity & extraction: Path-dependent generosity within sequential water appropriation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 416-429.
    16. Chávez, Carlos A. & Murphy, James J. & Stranlund, John K., 2018. "Managing and defending the commons: Experimental evidence from TURFs in Chile," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 229-246.
    17. Mwangi Joseph Kanyua, 2020. "Effect of Imposed Self-Governance on Irrigation Rules Design among Horticultural Producers in Peri-Urban Kenya," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-16, August.
    18. van Koppen, Barbara & Smits, Stef & Moriarty, Patrick & Penning de Vries, Frits W.T. & Mikhail, Monique & Boelee, Eline, 2009. "Climbing the water ladder: multiple-use water services for poverty reduction," IWMI Books, International Water Management Institute, number 137955.
    19. Thomas Marambanyika & Heinz Beckedahl, 2017. "Institutional arrangements governing wetland utilization and conservation in communal areas of Zimbabwe," Review of Social Sciences, LAR Center Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-17, January.
    20. Danny Cho & Tomson Ogwang & Christopher Opio, 2010. "Simplifying the Water Poverty Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 97(2), pages 257-267, June.
    21. Kumar, Shalander & Ramilan, Thiagarajah & Ramarao, C.A. & Rao, Ch. Srinivasa & Whitbread, Anthony, 2016. "Farm level rainwater harvesting across different agro climatic regions of India: Assessing performance and its determinants," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 55-66.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Community/Rural/Urban Development; Environmental Economics and Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q0 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General
    • Q2 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation
    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ags:ulaedd:91169. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feandco.html .

    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.