What Motivates Common Pool Resource Users? Experimental Evidence from the Field

Maria Vélez, John Stranlund () and James Murphy
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John Stranlund: Department of Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst

No 2005-4, Working Papers from University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Resource Economics

Abstract: This paper develops and tests several models of pure Nash strategies of individuals who extract from a common pool resource when they are motivated by a combination of self-interest and other motivations such as altruism, reciprocity, inequity aversion and conformism. We test whether an econometric summary of subjects’ strategies is consistent with one of these motivations using data from a series of common pool resource experiments conducted in three regions of Colombia. As expected, average extraction levels are less than that predicted by a model of pure self-interest, but are nevertheless sub-optimal. Moreover, we find that a model of conformism with monotonically increasing best response functions best describes average strategies. Our empirical results are inconsistent with models of altruism, reciprocity and inequity aversion.

Keywords: common pool resources; experiments; altruism; reciprocity; conformism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 C93 D64 H41 Q20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2005-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-exp, nep-pbe, nep-soc and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Related works:
Journal Article: What motivates common pool resource users? Experimental evidence from the field (2009)
Working Paper: What Motivates Common Pool Resource Users? Experimental Evidence from the Field (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dre:wpaper:2005-4

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