Can violence harm cooperation? Experimental evidence

Giacomo De Luca, Petros Sekeris and Dominic E. Spengler

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2018, vol. 90, issue C, 342-359

Abstract: In this paper we argue that natural resource conservation is jeopardised by the ability of users to resort to violence to appropriate resources when they become scarce. We provide evidence from a lab experiment that participants interacting in a dynamic game of common pool resource extraction reduce their cooperation on efficient levels of resource extraction when given the possibility to appropriate the resource at some cost, i.e. through conflict. Theoretically, cooperation is achievable via the threat of punishment strategies, which stop being subgame perfect in the presence of conflict. Accordingly we argue that the observed reduction of cooperation in the game's early stages in the lab is a consequence of participants (correctly) anticipating the use of appropriation when resources become scarce.

Keywords: Natural resource exploitation; Experiment; Dynamic game; Cooperation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C73 C91 D74 Q20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069617300839
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Can Violence Harm Cooperation? Experimental Evidence (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:90:y:2018:i:c:p:342-359

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2018.06.008

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates

More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().