Individual Heterogeneity, Group Interaction, and Co-operative Behaviour: Evidence from a Common-Pool Resource Experiment in South Africa and Namibia

Bernd Hayo and Björn Vollan

No 200917, MAGKS Papers on Economics from Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung)

Abstract: We present econometric evidence on the influence of an individual’s sociodemographic characteristics, economic background, and dynamic personal and group interactions on co-operative behaviour in a social dilemma situation. The data are from a framed common-pool resource experiment conducted in Namibian and South African farming communities. Our paper helps to better understand the discrepancy between the fact that people seem to care about advancing their relative position in real life but tend to act to reduce inequality in a laboratory setting. We analyse the first move in the game, the cumulated amount of resources gained by the players and, by taking into account the temporal dimension of the game in a panel context, each individual move.

Keywords: Common-pool resources; field experiment; group interaction; relative income position; Southern Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2009
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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