IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

The Survival of the Conformist: Social Pressure and Renewable Resource Management

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Alessandro Tavoni

    (Advanced School of Economics at the University of Venice)

  • Maja Schlüter

    (Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries)

  • Simon Levin

    (Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University)

Abstract

This paper examines the role of pro-social behavior as a mechanism for the establishment and maintenance of cooperation in resource use under variable social and environmental conditions. By coupling resource stock dynamics with social dynamics concerning compliance to a social norm prescribing non-excessive resource extraction in a common pool resource (CPR), we show that when reputational considerations matter and a sufficient level of social stigma affects the violators of a norm, sustainable outcomes are achieved. We find large parameter regions where norm-observing and norm-violating types coexist, and analyze to what extent such coexistence depends on the environment.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.feem.it/userfiles/attach/20109301131494NDL2010-127.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei in its series Working Papers with number 2010.127.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: Oct 2010
Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2010.127
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Corso Magenta, 63 - 20123 Milan

Phone: 0039-2-52036934
Fax: 0039-2-52036946
Web page: http://www.feem.it/
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords: Cooperation; Social Norm; Ostracism; Common Pool Resource; Evolutionary Game Theory; Replicator Equation; Agent-based Simulation; Coupled Socio-resource Dynamics;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
  • Q20 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - General
  • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Gowdy, John M., 2008. "Behavioral economics and climate change policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 632-644, December.
  2. Tarui, Nori & Mason, Charles F. & Polasky, Stephen & Ellis, Greg, 2008. "Cooperation in the commons with unobservable actions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 37-51, January.
  3. Oses-Eraso, Nuria & Viladrich-Grau, Montserrat, 2007. "On the sustainability of common property resources," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 393-410, May.
  4. McCarthy, Nancy & Sadoulet, Elisabeth & de Janvry, Alain, 2001. "Common Pool Resource Appropriation under Costly Cooperation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 297-309, November.
  5. Raakjær Nielsen, Jesper & Mathiesen, Christoph, 2003. "Important factors influencing rule compliance in fisheries lessons from Denmark," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 409-416, September.
  6. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 2002. "Social Capital and Community Governance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(483), pages 419-436, November.
  7. Sergio Currarini & Matthew O. Jackson & Paolo Pin, 2009. "An Economic Model of Friendship: Homophily, Minorities, and Segregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1003-1045, 07.
  8. Maier-Rigaud, Frank P. & Martinsson, Peter & Staffiero, Gianandrea, 2010. "Ostracism and the provision of a public good: experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 387-395, March.
  9. Rand, David Gertler & Dreber, Anna & Fudenberg, Drew & Ellingson, Tore & Nowak, Martin A., 2009. "Positive Interactions Promote Public Cooperation," Scholarly Articles 3804483, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  10. van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M. & Gowdy, John M., 2009. "A group selection perspective on economic behavior, institutions and organizations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 1-20, October.
  11. Joëlle Noailly & Cees Withagen & Jeroen Bergh, 2007. "Spatial Evolution of Social Norms in a Common-Pool Resource Game," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 36(1), pages 113-141, January.
  12. Anastasios Xepapadeas, 2005. "Regulation and Evolution of Compliance in Common Pool Resources," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 107(3), pages 583-599, 09.
  13. Ostrom, Elinor, 2007. "Challenges and growth: the development of the interdisciplinary field of institutional analysis," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(03), pages 239-264, December.
  14. Baland, Jean-Marie & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 2000. "Halting Degradation of Natural Resources: Is There a Role for Rural Communities?," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198290612.
  15. Sethi, Rajiv & Somanathan, E, 2006. "A Simple Model of Collective Action," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 725-747, April.
  16. Iwasa, Yoh & Uchida, Tomoe & Yokomizo, Hiroyuki, 2007. "Nonlinear behavior of the socio-economic dynamics for lake eutrophication control," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 219-229, June.
  17. George A. Akerlof, 2007. "The Missing Motivation in Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 5-36, March.
  18. Sethi, Rajiv & Somanathan, E, 1996. "The Evolution of Social Norms in Common Property Resource Use," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 766-788, September.
  19. Lindbeck, Assar, 1997. "Incentives and Social Norms in Household Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 370-377, May.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Sergio Currarini & Carmen Marchiori & Alessandro Tavoni, 2016. "Network economics and the environment: insights and perspectives," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 63951, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  2. Andries Richter & Johan Grasman, 2013. "The Transmission of Sustainable Harvesting Norms When Agents Are Conditionally Cooperative," Working Papers 2013.80, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
  3. Maja Schl�ter & Alessandro Tavoni & Simon Levin, 2014. "Robustness of norm-driven cooperation in the commons to environmental variability," GRI Working Papers 146, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
  4. Alessandro Tavoni & Simon Levin, 2014. "Managing the climate commons at the nexus of ecology, behaviour and economics," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60823, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  5. Sergio Currarini & Carmen Marchiori & Alessandro Tavoni, 2016. "Network Economics and the Environment: Insights and Perspectives," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(1), pages 159-189, September.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2010.127. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (barbara racah)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.