Cooperativeness and Impatience in the Tragedy of the Commons

Ernst Fehr and Andreas Leibbrandt

No 378, IEW - Working Papers from Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: This paper examines the role of other-regarding and time preferences for cooperation in the field. We study the preferences of fishermen whose main, and often only, source of income stems from using a common pool resource (CPR). The exploitation of a CPR involves a negative interpersonal and inter-temporal externality because individuals who exploit the CPR reduce the current and the future yield for both others and themselves. Accordingly, economic theory predicts that more cooperative and more patient individuals should be less likely to exploit the CPR. Our data supports this prediction because fishermen who exhibit a higher propensity for cooperation in a laboratory public goods experiment, and those who show more patience in a laboratory time preference experiment, exploit the fishing grounds less in their daily lives. Moreover, because the laboratory public goods game exhibits no inter-temporal spillovers, measured time preferences should not predict cooperative behavior in the laboratory. This prediction is also borne out by our data. Thus, laboratory preference measures are useful to capture important dimensions of field behavior.

Keywords: Cooperation; common pool resource; experiments; generalizability; methodology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B4 C9 D8 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-pbe, nep-res and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Working Paper: Cooperativeness and Impatience in the Tragedy of the Commons (2008)
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