Context matters to explain field experiments: Results from Colombian and Thai fishing villages

Castillo, Daniel; Bousquet, François; Janssen, Marco A.; Worrapimphong, Kobchai; Cárdenas, Juan Camilo

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.05.011

Cited by 76 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Some of their results are also reported in Castillo et al (2011). 3 It is also neglected that not all studies using simple experiments have high external validity (Voors, 2012) especially without interpreting the data within the context of local norms and traditions (Tracer (2003) or Vollan (2012)).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Co-managing common-pool resources: Do formal rules have to be adapted to traditional ecological norms?

Vollan

Prediger

Frölich

2013

Ecological Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Co-managing common pool resources: Do formal rules have to be adapted to traditional ecological norms?Abstract: We examine the effectiveness of three democratically chosen rules that alleviate the coordination and cooperation problems inherent in collectively managed common-pool resources. In particular we investigate how rule effectiveness and rule compliance depends on the prevailing local norms and ecological values held by resource users. For this purpose, we employ a framed field experiment that is based on a rangeland model for semi-arid regions and carried out with communal farmers in Namibia and South Africa. Participants could vote for three "best practice" management rules found in many places around the world that are discussed for implementation in the study area: (temporary) private property rights, rotational grazing or limitation of livestock numbers. All rules were designed in a way that facilitated cooperation or coordination of actions. The focus of this study lies on the interactions between these rules and prevalent ecological norms exhibited in the rounds prior to rule implementation. In contrast to previous lab experimental studies, we find that democratic voting of rules is not sufficient for high rule compliance and an overall enhancement in cooperation. Rules turned out to be inefficient if they were in conflict with the prevalent ecological norm.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Co-managing common-pool resources: Do formal rules have to be adapted to traditional ecological norms?

Vollan

Prediger

Frölich

2013

Ecological Economics

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“…Castillo et al (2011) found that age has a negative and significant relationship in the baseline condition (open access) and under different institutions such as a rotation system and an elected quota.…”

Section: Related Literaturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rules Compliance and Age: Experimental Evidence with Fishers from the Amazon River

Vélez¹,

López²

2013

E&S

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ABSTRACT. We report the results of common-pool resource economic experiments conducted with indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. The experiments recreate two contexts: a limited open access with no institutions regulating the fisheries and a nonmonetary external regulation that limits individual extraction when a fisher is found to be overextracting. We find that variables that did not explain behavior under limited open access do so under the regulatory institution. In particular, when the nonmonetary external regulation was introduced, we found a nonlinear significant effect of age on individual harvest. This result implies a negative relationship between age and individual extraction that reaches a peak around age 54. Our results suggest that in our sample, age groups react differently to an institution aimed to manage the fishery and open a discussion regarding the role of older fishers when a new regulation is introduced to manage natural resources. Their role could go beyond the dissemination of traditional knowledge and cultural systems since older fishers could be key actors in disseminating and adapting new institutions.

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“…Janssen (2010) and Janssen et al (2010), for example, find that spatial resource dynamics can have a significant influence on the institutional rules that arise and that this element of complexity amplifies the importance of communication between resource users. Cardenas et al (2013), Castillo et al (2011) and Prediger et al (2011) also introduce spatial variability. In their designs, field subjects choose where to harvest (two options) and the location with too high harvest pressure will degrade temporarily.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Disasters can Turn the Tragedy into Success

Lindahl

Crépin

Schill

2016

Environ Resource Econ

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This paper presents a novel experimental design that allows testing how users of a common-pool resource respond to an endogenously driven drastic drop in the supply of the resource. We show that user groups will manage a resource more efficiently when confronted with such a non-concave resource growth function, compared to groups facing a logistic growth function. Even among cooperative groups there is a significant behavioral difference, although theory predicts there should not be. We argue that effectiveness of communication is endogenous to the problem; the threat of reaching a critical tipping point, beyond which the growth rate will drop drastically, triggers more effective communication within the group, enabling stronger commitment for cooperation and more knowledge sharing, which together explains the results. We argue that the insights generated by this study can be seen as one of many, but nevertheless important, contributions towards an increased understanding of the interactions between human behavior and the environment in common-pool resource systems.

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Context matters to explain field experiments: Results from Colombian and Thai fishing villages

Cited by 76 publications

References 15 publications

Co-managing common-pool resources: Do formal rules have to be adapted to traditional ecological norms?

Co-managing common-pool resources: Do formal rules have to be adapted to traditional ecological norms?

Rules Compliance and Age: Experimental Evidence with Fishers from the Amazon River

Potential Disasters can Turn the Tragedy into Success

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