The Effects of Communication on the Partnership Solution to the Commons

Neil Buckley, Stuart Mestelman, R. Andrew Muller (), Stephan Schott and Jingjing Zhang
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R. Andrew Muller: McMaster University

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2018, vol. 70, issue 2, No 4, 363-380

Abstract: Abstract Organizing individual appropriators into output sharing groups has been found to effectively solve the tragedy of the commons problem. We experimentally investigate the robustness of this solution by introducing different channels of communication that naturally arise from group competitions. In the absence of communication, we confirm that output sharing can introduce sufficient free riding to offset over-harvesting and results in full efficiency. Allowing local communication within output-sharing groups substantially decreases this efficiency enhancement because it reduces free riding and boosts between-group competition. Yet the efficiency level is still significantly higher than that achieved when global communication is allowed among all appropriators in a conventional common pool resource without output sharing. The efficiency-reducing effect of local communication is mitigated when random partners instead of fixed partners are sharing output over time, and is nearly eliminated when random partners are formed with users who belong to different communication groups.

Keywords: Common pool resources; Output sharing; Partnership solution; Communication; Competition; Group behavior; Partners and strangers; Experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 Q20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10640-017-0124-9

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