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

Juan-Camilo Cardenas, Luz Angela Rodriguez and Nancy L. Johnson

No 91169, Documentos CEDE Series from Universidad de Los Andes, Economics Department

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.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban Development; Environmental Economics and Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44
Date: 2009-11-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-agr, nep-exp, nep-pbe, nep-reg and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Collective action for watershed management: field experiments in Colombia and Kenya (2011)
Working Paper: Collective Action forWatershed Management: Field Experiments in Colombia and Kenya (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:ulaedd:91169

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.91169

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