Effect of rule choice in dynamic interactive spatial commons

Abstract

This paper uses laboratory experiments to examine the effect of an endogenous rule change from open access to private property as a potential solution to overharvesting in commons dilemmas. A novel, spatial, real-time renewable resource environment was used to investigate whether participants were willing to invest in changing the rules from an open access situation to a private property system. We found that half of the participants invested in creating private property arrangements. Groups who had experienced private property in the second round of the experiment, made different decisions in the Rachel Vilensky recruited the participants. Yajing Wang, Michael Schoon, Tun Myint, Elinor Ostrom, Pamela Jagger, and Frank van Laerhoven assisted Janssen in performing the experiments. Also, many graduate students, staff, and faculty pre-tested the experiments and we thank them for all of their help. Janssen did the data analysis with input from Takao Sasaki. We are appreciative of the excellent comments of two anonymous reviewers.

Agent‐based modeling in ecological economics

“…ABMs have been designed with the results of lab experiments in mind, and experiments can reveal behaviors at an individual level whose inclusion in ABM would have novel applications. Janssen et al 101 uses laboratory experiments to examine endogenous rule changes from open access to private property as a solution to private versus public commons dilemmas, testing the rate at which participants invested in creating private property arrangements. ABMs have much to gain by using experiments to better select agent behaviors, calibrate decision‐making functions based on revealed behaviors, and validate outcomes of ABMs against laboratory findings.…”

“…Experiments can also help identify the type of decision‐making strategy used in different contexts, whether decision makers optimize, use heuristics, learn, or imitate others. The use of combined ABM and experiments is limited, namely being conducted in Evans et al , 70 Duffy and Unver, 23 Janssen et al , 101 and Heckbert 102 . ABMs have been designed with the results of lab experiments in mind, and experiments can reveal behaviors at an individual level whose inclusion in ABM would have novel applications.…”

Collective Behavior

“…They require sanctioning systems (e.g., jails) to assure that discovered rule violations are punished. Originally unorganized groups will propose, vote upon, and live under rule, monitoring, and sanction systems that they construct themselves (Janssen, Goldstone, Menczer, & Ostrom, 2008; Samuelson & Messick, 1995). In this manner, groups that face scarce resources are often importantly not simple decentralized systems, but rather decentralized systems that spontaneously create rule systems that are themselves decentralized.…”